The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 supermajority of Republican-appointed justices, is on a rampage. On Friday, they extinguished the constitutional right to reproductive freedom. Then on Monday, they eased restrictions on teachers and coaches leading students in prayer at public schools.

In his majority statement in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that ended abortion rights, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made a curiously two-faced statement about future rights: He said that he thought previous court rulings on birth control, marriage equality, and gay rights broadly were badly decided. But he also offered assurances that they would not be touched since they were less serious issues than abortion.

Should Alito be trusted? The fact that conservative justices previously made misleading statements about respecting precedent on abortion suggests not.

This week I talk to Linda Hirshman, whom I often describe as the Cassandra of the American left because she has been warning of this moment for decades. Linda is an astute analyst of conservative judicial extremism, whose work can be found here. We talk about where the court is going next and also radical (but also perfectly doable) actions the Democrats can take to stop the evisceration of basic constitutional rights.

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