This is Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Lithway.

I'm not saying it's rigged.

I'm saying it stinks to high heaven and everybody knows that.

You really have created this world in which the Supreme Court has essentially said,

we're not going to protect democracy anymore.

Everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

And now the Supreme Court is saying, not only aren't we going to protect you,

but we're not going to let Congress protect you either.

We need people to believe in the integrity of our election system. It is critical to maintain a

constitutional republic. You know, if you want to say the Constitution's colorblind, it's hard to say

that about voting since the voting amendment in the Constitution talks about race.

This was one of those weeks at SCOTUS where we cautiously approached what might have been

a big can of exploding snakes on Thursday's Decision Day and instead just got a plain

old can of three worms. Mark Joseph Stern and I will be discussing that in our

bonus episode for Plus members and exploring why Justice Katanji Brown Jackson found herself

atop the mountain again this week trying to ring the alarm bell about what this right-wing

majority is up to when it says it understands congressional intent better

than, well, Congress. Go to slate.com slash amicus plus to become a member and hear that conversation.

But here on the main show, I am turning to one of the very smartest constitutional scholars that I know

to talk about perhaps the most fundamental issue of

this moment, a moment in which we are beset on all sides by urgent crises. That issue is, of course,

...