One Man Owns The Supreme Court

recent Supreme Court decisions have taken a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to our democracy shredding long-standing president legislating from the bench and empowering a president King and that's just in the last few weeks the Court's rulings will touch all our lives and profoundly shape our world for decades to come but what feels like our waking nightmare began as the wet dream of a conservative you may never have even heard of President Trump was quite straightforward about wanting to appoint the kind of Judges that were on a list that you helped him provide from the beginning we didn't Outsource this business we insourced it we just brought everybody from the federal Society inside the White House at the White House council's office which does this work is almost fully populated by people who are you who have cut their teeth on the Federalist society and its debates and its and its philosophical work that's Leonard Leo the political mover Shaker and expert fundraiser behind the Supreme Court's 63 conservative super majority and though his name is seldom attached to his handiwork Leo's sticky little originalist fingerprints are all over our judiciary at both the federal and state levels how did this yawn of a man come to be at the center of the vast power network using the legal system to undermine the will of the people when and how did he accumulate this power what if anything does he believe and what does the Federalist Society have to do with all of this this is how Leonard Leo broke the courts roll the intro somehow we always end up in the same place an overreaching Court a court where any majority of five exercising will instead of judgment can decide essentially whatever they please bias in the Supreme Court is shaping our laws for the Next Generation latest headlines and rulings have led Biden to announce plans to push for Supreme Court reform in the form of term limits and an enforcable Ethics code but the news you read can have a significant effect on your own personal biases and can shape the way you see this news coverage of Biden's Supreme Court reform plans is a great example of this my partner today ground news compiled 164 articles covering this story you can follow along at ground. news/ Leia right-wing publication Breitbart reports that Biden caves to left will back changes to Supreme Court whereas the left-leaning Alternet says Biden confirms he's coming out with major initiative to reign in Supreme Court each headline shows the political bias of the Publications these tools on ground news can help you determine the bias you're seeing in the news and give you a more rounded understanding of an issue so when your conservative Uncle Carl starts ranting about packing the courts you'll have already read the same news he's read along with other sources so you can hit him with the facts but also you can understand where he's coming from but ground news does more than let you seamlessly compare coverage you can see the bias distribution which tells me that most of the coverage comes from the center looking more closely at these sources I can see that most are considered highly factual or credible ratings backed by Independent News monitoring organizations and considering half the world is voting this year my favorite ground news feature at the moment is their election focused blind spot feed with a bird's eye view of issues that tend to get more attention from the left or right right than others I can easily step out of my echo chamber and understand how partisan narratives shape reality and votes I'm always really impressed with ground news and genuinely think they're a great resource for identifying biases in the media so scan my QR code click the link in the description or go to ground. news/ Leia to get 40% off the same Vantage plan I use to stay informed get unlimited access to all ground news has to offer while helping an independent team keep the media transparent thanks ground news Leonard Leo doesn't seem like he'd be the life of the party but by all counts he knows how to show important people a good time he's the kind of guy who has a favorite table at the best restaurant in every city who understands fine wine pairings and who can confidently Converse on any subject Under the Sun a conservative in every sense of the word he values the old school ritual of meeting fa to face since at least 2007 Leo has been finding ways to pamper his favorite Supreme Court Justices leveraging his network of wealthy doners to give them the Royal Treatment he once got Scalia who Leo has said was like an uncle to him and Clarence Thomas his longtime BFF access to an exclusive donor Retreat hosted by the coch brothers another time he organized a salmon fishing trip in Alaska for himself Justice Alo and others they traveled on one major donor's private plane and stayed in the lodge of another early on Leo understood the power of having access to Supreme Court Justices he saw how donors looked at him when he mentioned he just had dinner with Clarence Thomas and he saw how much Clarence liked being introduced to fawning high rollers Leo made it his personal mission to keep the conservative justices Happy on the bench and away from private sector jobs that might tempt them to leave by giving them access to the lifestyle of the 1% while earning a measly government salary of $298,500 a year as you'll see throughout this video Leonard Leo is obscenely good at moving money around in 2022 he gained control of the single largest political donation on record when Electronics magnate bar seed I don't know how to say that name gave $1.6 million to a nonprofit called the marble Freedom trust controlled by Leo for comparison 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations that generally align with Democrats reportedly spent $15 billion combined in 2020 unlike corporations which usually have three directors trusts like the marble Freedom trust are only required to have one as the sole trustee and chairman Leonard Leo now has unilateral control over that money which he funnels into a vast network of conservative causes schools dark Money Networks and of course the Federalist Society the influential conservative Legal Group through which he advised multiple Republican presidents on their Supreme Court Justice elections indeed Leo's Federalist Society flying monkeys have been wreaking havoc all across our judicial system for decades the judge who upheld Florida don't say gay law Federalist Society member North Carolina Justice who wrote the opinion reinstating a controversial voter ID law Federalist Society member Chief legal council for the ads the Conservative Christian legal firm that orchestrated the Mississippi abortion ban that was ultimately in the do's decision Federalist Society member e Cannon the judge who just threw out Trump's Maro criminal case on bogus legal reasoning Federal Society member Leonard Leo handpicked Trump Supreme Court short list all affiliated with the Federalist Society then moved millions of dollars behind the scenes to make sure his picks got confirmed but where did this guy even come from Leonard Anthony Leo was born in November 1965 to a devout Catholic Family living in Long Island New York and as a toddler Leo's father a pastry chef died of cancer by the time Leo was five his mother had remarried and moved the family to Suburban New Jersey where he spent the rest of his childhood Leo's grandfather came to the US from Italy at age 14 then got a job as a tailor at Brooks Brothers where he eventually worked his way up to the role of Vice President his grandfather's success in the Garment industry cemented the young Leo's belief in the American dream and his love of bespoke clothing as a teenager Leo is said to have regularly worn a tie to his public high school [ __ ] nerd reminder that it was the early 80s and other students would have been dressed like this Leo was a natural schoer and salesman in fact he was so good at fundraising for his senior prom and class trip that he earned the nickname Moneybags kid among his classmates I can't tell if they meant it as a compliment but it definitely sounds like the kind of thing a teen movie villain might sneer as they knock the books out of your arms but Leo was undaunted this man was the Prototype of a young conservative and since generally speaking people tend to become more conservative as they age I was curious what turns a teenager into a republican according to one study I found in the Journal of genetic psychology a major influence was parenting not shocking I guess but unlike liberal teens who reported higher levels of conflict with their parents conservatives tended to say they had good relationships with their parents perceiving them as understanding helpful and affectionate and even as they emphasized conventional approved Behavior Conformity with authority and making a good impression while liberal teens saw themselves as independent thinkers introspective sympathetic and loving conservative adolescents regarded themselves as more conventional responsible Dependable orderly neat organized successful and ambitious than liberals and being perhaps the scariest and most important quality of them all in the high school yearbook Leo and his future wife Sally Schroeder shared a class superlative most likely to succeed fun fact I was a competitive opera singer in high school and thus received the title of most musical during my senior year do with that information what you will in the fall of 1983 Leo arrived at Cornell University where he studied with conservative professors in the government Department though he didn't know it then his timing couldn't have been better the previous April three students at Yale in the University of Chicago had formed a new debate and networking group for conservatives and Libertarians called the Federalist Society the seat of the idea had come during a meeting of firste Yale law students in the fall of 1980 when the 88 students present were pulled about who they voted for in the last presidential election only two admitted to supporting Ronald Reagan one student named Steven calabi found this deeply disturbing in his view the pair of raised hands could only mean that either Yale wasn't attracted enough conservatives period or that conservatives were on campus but hiding their true beliefs to fit into dominant liberal culture the Warren and in part the burger courts had convinced liberals that the legal system was should be and always would be a vehicle for Progress the Constitution liberals believed was a living document that should evolve but conservatives lovers of the dusty old past that they are disagreed many were coming around to a type of judicial interpretation called originalism that claimed to prioritize the structure of the Constitution over its impacts originalism claimed to rely solely on the original intent of the framers or the original public meaning of the Constitution's words at the time they were written whether tired of feeling like an outcast Underdog loser or interested in making sure that the principles of limited government embodied in our constitution receive a fair hearing which is the Federalist society's official version calabi saw an opportunity to build up a legal counter Elite so he rallied two Pals from the University of Chicago law school with campaign experience to strategize a solution they modeled their early Playbook after the tactics of guess who Ronald [ __ ] Reagan obviously just as Reagan built up forces and Battleground Nations to help topple enemy regimes The Federalist society would establish conservative hubs to tip the Power Balance at elite law schools the student Trio then engaged two Superstar faculty advisers from their respective colleges future Supreme Court nominee Robert bour and future Supreme Court Justice anonin Scalia years later Scalia reflected on how hard it had been to be a conservative teacher at an elite institution like the University of Chicago back in the 0s it made one feel isolated lonely like a weirdo he said the Federalist Society offered an antidote to that loneliness sure it was a forum for debate and the exchange of academic ideas but perhaps most importantly it was a safe space for conservatives to socialize especially young white well-to-do men are society's most ostracized Underdog at the society's first gathering in the spring of 1982 around 200 attendees packed into Yale's largest classroom to hear from conservative speakers and the energy was electric between lectures the Halls buzzed with excitement people stayed up late into the night talking distinguished conservatives were delighted to have young people eagerly asking them questions for a change and ambitious students were thrilled to have access to such powerful connections strangers crashed on each other's floors and lifelong friendships were formed the Vibes were by all accounts Immaculate and everyone walked away from the experience hungry for more when recounting its origin story The Federalist Society has always insisted that its goals were purely intellectual not political but reports from people who attended that first Symposium beged to differ the effort was from the get-go aggressively political Pro publico reported there was a feeling of stealing for a fight in his lecture that weekend conservative activist Morton Blackwell told the assembled they must study how to win he said that for too long conservatives had believed believed in the sir Galahad Theory I shall win because my heart is pure but that he lamented is not the way the real world Works he then recited a robust to-do list outlining what would become the Federalist society's priorities for decades to come how to get the right people into the study of law how to get into the right law school How To Succeed as a conservative in law school law school participation in politics and government how to get better people on law faculties how to get a good clerking job how to become a judge how to make sure the right people get to be judges 5 months after that first Symposium the Federalist Society for Law and public policy studies had become an official national nonprofit corporation its logo depicted the silhouette of founding Federalist Father James Madison as drawn by Robert bork's son Charles hilariously Madison's real profile was allegedly deemed to be too ugly to be on any brochure so baby bourk gave him a touch of rhino plasty a pretty hypocritical start for an organization whose whole thing is preserving original content bolstered by enthusiastic right-wing donors who'd been awaiting the emergence of just such a group to throw their weight behind the Federalist Society grew quickly between 1982 and 1987 it got an office in DC and more than 75 chapters launched at law schools across the country one of those chapters was founded by a young Leonard Leo ever the textbook young conservative Leo perfectly fit the Federalist Society mold according to Professor abery early Federalist Society members tended to be students with intensely academic even scientific views of the law many of them came from backgrounds he called the minorities of the 20s meaning Irish Americans and Italian Americans groups that felt like they'd overcome discrimination without anyone's help and were suddenly being discriminated against again under affirmative action and as we know there are few motivators more potent than a white man's persecution complex Leo first encountered the Federalist Society in the fall of 1985 as a congressional intern attending a speaker luncheon that the group had sponsored featuring Reagan's new Attorney General Edwin me Leo still credits mis's words on originalism was shaping his worldview there is danger me had declared in seeing the Constitution as an empty vessel into which each generation May pour its passion and Prejudice the following year 1986 Leo now a law student at Cornell started a federalist Society chapter on campus he brought me and other conservative scholars in to give talks but the general student body didn't take much notice conservative legal Scholars were still largely dismissed as Fringe eccentrics In Academia but within the Reagan Administration Federalist Society membership became a badge of trust our pal edin me famously stacked Reagan's Administration with young Federalists including all three founders of the society who each worked as assistant Attorneys General in 1987 founding Federalist Society faculty adviser Robert Bourke even managed to land a supreme court nomination though he famously borked that opportunity and didn't wind up getting confirmed once people realized that his originalist philosophy intended to erase most of the Civil Rights liberal judges had just spent decades establishing members of the Federalist Society were Furious about bork's rejection Leo has even called bork's confirmation process a character assassination but they were also highly motivated bork's loss galvanized the Federalist Society to get even more organized and aggressive to ensure it would never lose a supreme court confirmation again two years later in 1989 Leo graduated from law school married his high school sweetheart Sally and went back to Washington to clerk for a federal appet judge during his time there Leo met and befriended one Clarence Thomas who recently started working at the US Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991 Leo decided not to go into big law and instead accepted a job as one of the Federalist society's first paid employees but he delayed his start date to help his good pal Clarence Thomas get confirmed to the Supreme Court according to propublica Leo spent long hours in a windowless room Gathering evidence to bolster Thomas against Anita Hill's credible allegations of sexual harassment on October 15th 1991 Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52 to 48 the narrowest margin in a century until Brett Kavanaugh Thomas got a supreme court seat and Leo got himself his second direct line to power Uncle Scalia was already on the bench at that point then came 1992 a whammy of a year for Leo both personally and politically first in June the Supreme Court handed down the Planned Parenthood V Casey decision that would rattle religious conservatives to their core despite a bench stacked with five Republican justices three of whom had been nominated by Reagan or bush senior who were both heavily supported by the religious right the court upheld the right to abortion though they did add restrictions anything short of a ban was seen as a slap in the face in their view Casey was proof that establishment Republicans couldn't be trusted to overturn Row the problem they believed was that once elevated to high positions Republican jurists tended to stay committed to Pro big business agendas but went soft on social policies according to the nation typical GOP nominees were too much influenced by the ambient liberal culture of law school and the Washington Elite this phenomen on of judicial Drift actually used to be called the greenhouse effect named for New York Times supreme court reporter Linda Greenhouse who conservative saw as the blueprint of the sort of Georgetown liberal that conservative justices were desperate to impress after the casc ruling Leo and his Federalist Society cronies realized that if they were going to cultivate truly conservative judges who would follow through on the religious rights goals they'd need to create their own pipeline one that would not only capture law students but continue nurturing them throughout their careers according to Pro publica the strategy was Finding young talented Minds when they were still in law school advancing their careers supporting them after setbacks and insulating them from ideological drift donors loved the new plan and with Moneybags kid Leo as its deao Chief fundraiser the Federalist society's budget quadrupled during the90s but over the same period Leo's young family faced challenges in 1992 the same year the Casey decision enraged and emboldened pro-lifers in their Crusade against abortion rights Sally Leo gave birth to her first child Margaret Margaret was born with spinabifida a condition affecting about one in every 2,875 us pregnancies each year in which a fetus' spinal column fails to close completely spinabifida typically occurs in the first month of pregnancy and in most cases can be diagnosed before the baby is born effects of the condition can range from mild to severe though in all cases lifelong care is necessary Margaret Leo lived 14 years before dying of complications related to her condition in 2007 and everything I could find about Margaret suggests that she was a lovable friendly and joyful person despite the pain caused by her condition Margaret was paralyzed from the waist down and had no control over her bladder or bowels a shunt in her brain helped spinal fluids circulate and titanium rods were inserted to help straighten her spine but the rods gradually bent and eventually one of them even poked out of her neck yet Margaret supposedly never complained even to her family Leonard Leo says his daughter's life and death only strengthened his Catholic faith he credits her with his has returned to attending daily mass but Margaret's memory has become more than just a pillar for her father's spirituality at least a handful of people have reported Miracles after praying to Margaret Leo and while the canonization process is much more complicated than I care to get into here just know that Gathering evidence of Miracles is a big part of that process and I don't know for sure that Leo is trying to turn his late daughter into a saint but I am positive that if anyone could pull off getting their kid canonized it would be him this man has a personal priest and gives a lot of money to Catholic causes a portrait of Margaret along with Jesus welcomes visitors to the closest Tabernacle to the White House the Catholic information center in DC where Leo is a top donor in 2017 he and his wife Sally became stewards of St Peter after pledging more than a million dollars to Vatican initiatives in 2022 he formed a nonprofit called The Sacred spaces foundation and used it to purchase a historic church in Maine where by the way the neighbors hate him one lady is known to walk around town wearing an ask me about Leonard Leo pin when she's not protesting outside his properties to his supporters Leonard Leo is delightfully consistent who better to promote a staunch pro-life agenda than someone who stayed the course despite knowing firsthand that not every pregnancy goes perfectly heck the Leos went on to have six more kids after Margaret including a son with spino some people find that inspiring I find it pretty Sinister that one man's survivorship bias the notion that if I got through it anyone can so therefore stop complaining and pull up those bootst apps has turned into yet another way for him to Gaslight everyone into accepting his beliefs he's basically using his disabled daughter to further his political agenda at his core Leonard Leo is a power broker he doesn't really do anything by which I mean he's never practiced law argued a case in court been elected to public office or served a day on a Judicial bench this man doesn't seem to give a single flying [ __ ] about his actual job title despite being nearly synonymous with the Federalist society and its influence he's never sat at the top of its org chart before becoming the co-chair in 2020 his title was Executive Vice President whatever that actually means in practice instead Leo prefers to stay behind the scenes making introductions greasing palms and making it clear that it's in everyone's best interest to stay on his good side and if you'd like to get on my good side support my channel by becoming a patron today links and details in the description despite its obvious political influence the Federalist Society still considers itself an educational organization early on chapters were advised to avoid billing their events as conservative and to even include liberal voices in their debates by doing so it was able to position itself as neutral intellectually rigorous and nonpartisan while still aligning every conversation with conservative goals by staying above the political Fray the Federalist Society felt it could more effectively continue its march to power behind the scenes as the 9s gave way to the 2000s the network continued expanding becoming an Ever more effective radex for judicial jobs clerkships and judge ships in particular and at the center of that growing network was Leonard Leo when George W bush came to power Leo was one of four Outsiders tapped to advise on key Administration hires and judicial nominees the group's nickname The Four Horsemen like of the Apocalypse you don't know who chose that name it was during George W Bush's Administration that Leo solidified his reputation within the GOP as a connector and a guy who could make things happen in The Wider political Arena by the early 2000s the Federalist Society was becoming a center of gravity in Washington if you were an ambitious conservative who wanted to make it in DC you had to know the Federalists and they had had to know you in 2005 when Bush found himself with not one but two Supreme Court vacancies to fill Leo and his Federalist Society cronies were instrumental in the confirmation process first up was John Roberts who the world was shocked to learn was not technically a member of the Federalist Society in the wake of his nomination top news outlets including CNN the LA Times legal times and the Washington Post all reported that the Republican lawyer was a federalist Society member that is until a White House spokeswoman reached out to individual reporters to personally Cor cor the mistake he has no recollection of ever being a member she insisted this despite evidence that Roberts served on a steering committee for the DC chapter in the late 90s and that he admitted to attending and even speaking at various Federalist Society events over the years so if Roberts acted so much like a federalist Society member anyway why bother denying it and so aggressively for that matter well conservatives were still uneasy after Robert bork's Bor Supreme Court nomination they knew they needed Democrats to buy in and feared that formal affiliation with the Federal Society could undermine their support but once Roberts was confirmed they grew Bolder their next task was blocking the nomination of Harriet Meers she was a Bush family Insider but a federalist Society Outsider she hadn't been to the right meetings shaken the right hands or generally made herself known to them and for a group that's all about indoctrinating Judges that was a big problem Federalist Society members loudly opposed Meyers nomination with a campaign of vitriolic op-eds ultimately forcing her withdrawal in her place Bush nominated Samu Alo a federalist Society darling who' worked alongside many of the group's Founders in Reagan's doj Alo was exactly the kind of trustworthy conservative asset the Federalist Society wanted on the Supreme Court at the start of this election process Leonard Leo was just one of many advisers summoned to assist Harriet Meers was actually the one leading the committee but Leo quickly became its deao chief that same year 2005 Leo found yet another way to expand his influence over a fancy Italian dinner he and a few very important Pals concocted the bright idea to form a dark money nonprofit to help rally support for Bush's Supreme Court nominees originally called the judicial confirmation Network changed during the Obama years to be called the judicial crisis Network and most recently renamed to the Concord fund the group which we're just going to call jcn is notable for treating confirmation battles like political races within a few months of forming in 2005 jcn was already running positive ads for Roberts and Alo while feeding glowing quotes about them to any news outlet that would technically on paper jcn was completely independent from the Federalist society and the White House Leonard Leo was never on its books at all but according to interviews with Politico White House staffers all understood that jcn was a Leo group and soon jcn was funneling millions of dollars from undisclosed donors to capture every key Court in the country according to prop publica Leo not only Drew on his network of contacts to place Federalist Society protes in clerkships judgeships and jobs in the White House and across the federal government government he personally called State Attorneys General to recommend hires for positions he prly understood were key like solicitors General the litigators who represent States before the US Supreme Court in states that elect jurists groups close to him spent millions of dollars to place his allies on the bench in states that appoint top judges he maneuvered to play a role in their selection in 2008 an incumbent state supreme court justice from Wisconsin named Lewis Butler got into hot water with the state's largest business group over a controversial ruling Leo jumped at the opportunity sending Butler's Challenger a list of donors who would each give the maximum amount as long as they knew that Leonard told you to call meanwhile jcn launched an ad campaign as expensive as it was fowl which included commercials showing a picture of Butler a black man next to a picture of a sex offender who was also black and just like that Butler lost his seat eight years later Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker appointed Federalist Society chapter head and anti-abortion lawyer Dan Kelly to the state's High Court even though the other two candidates were already appeals judges and Kelly had never sat on a bench in 2014 jcn gave a quarter of a million dollars to a newly formed campaign group called The Republican Attorneys General Association or Raga focused on getting the right kind of people into State Attorney General positions prua explained the appeal pointing out that Attorneys General are more likely than private plaintiffs to have the standing to bring the types of high impact cases prioritized by by Leo and his Network jcn Remains the ragga's largest and most reliable fun to this day these days jcn largest and most reliable fun is the marble Freedom trust the $1.6 billion trust that Leo controls all by himself I feel like Charlie and it's always sunny here but this isn't a grand conspiracy theory it's a carefully orchestrated and very real web of moving money around in a way that is perfectly legal because our legal and political system was built by the very men benefiting from this Shady business business in any other context it would be money laundering in politics well that's just showas baby a few years later when Mississippi's attorney general Lynn Fitch was looking for a new solicitor general to lead the state's biggest cases she found former Trump doj lawyer Scott Stewart's name in a pile of resumés that had been given to her by the Republican Attorneys General Association according to the New York Times at that point Raga whose executive director used to work for the Federalist Society had received more than $113 million from Leo's network of organizations Stewart got the job and went on to argue the do's case before The Supreme Court yikes and speaking of the Supreme Court jcn has spent an estimated $37 million since 2016 on the Supreme Court alone $7 million to attack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland then 10 million each to boost Gorsuch Kavanagh and Coney Barrett to power and we all know how that's turned out while the Supreme Court has made some truly heinous decisions lately it's important to remember they're not changing the country in a vacuum the justices are just one piece of of a massive network of people who either truly believe the [ __ ] they say or who know they're full of [ __ ] but are power hungry enough not to care the Federalist Society only has about 90,000 members around 65,000 in their lawyer division compare that to 400,000 members of the American Bar Association less than a quarter of All American lawyers even [ __ ] with the Federalist society and it's not like lawyers have the reputation for Sterling morality to begin with for all the hand ringing about how suffocatingly liberal law schools used to be as someone who went to law school more recently I can tell you that they're not breeding grounds for bleeding hearts even at the objectively crunchy bleeding heart liberal law school I went to the vibe was still competitive obsessed with Prestige and many students myself included were woed by the lifestyle and Prestige that comes with sixf figure big law jobs at private firms that could help pay off massive loans and provide other perks like bar exam prep courses and a stipend while studying for the bar that's right kids law school doesn't actually prepare you for the bar that's a separate course that costs thousands of dollars which you're expected to treat like a full-time job for the 10 weeks between graduating from law school and taking the bar exam you can't work you have to pay like $5,000 for additional exam prep on top of hundreds for the exam itself and either you take out a loan to cover that and your living expenses for that time or you come upon a large family inheritance or if you're like me and many others you say well [ __ ] I guess if I get a big law job offer that pays for my bar prep and living expenses while I study and then I'll be able to afford to like exist while studying for the hardest exam of my life even the most well-intentioned law students struggle to resist the Cutthroat culture of the legal profession and those who do resist often end up in lowp paying nonprofit jobs that will burn them out in 5 to 10 years apply all that to the most elite institutions ones that are already breeding grounds for incredible amounts of competition and scrambling for Prestige and you have a recipe for keeping your Federalist Society pipeline well supplied which is ironic when you think about the fact that the Federalist society and its ilk come from Elite institutions but breed style of politics that is incredibly skeptical of elite institutions make it make sense Leonard reflecting on just how powerful the Federalist Society has grown you might be wondering why liberals haven't built anything comparable a Mother Jones article from 2019 suggests that such an organization simply couldn't work with liberals building big umbrella organizations for liberals tends to be like hurting cats over and over no matter who tries or how much money is put into it it just doesn't work we don't want to be hurted and I can understand that given that I think generally liberals tend to understand there needs to be individualized solutions for individualized issues and the problems are always changing and evolving so having one clear and concise solution to it all isn't really realistic or best for the people affected that doesn't lend itself very well to a staunch set of unmoving principles to coales around over the course of decades such that you're either with us or you're against us but I can't help but wonder whether our hyper individualism will be our downfall I've spoken before on this channel about how counterproductive the pressure to perfectly perform your progressivism can be the fear of being canceled or morally condemned over any perceived misstep can chill discourse attempting to treat every issue with equal sensitivity makes it difficult to strategically craft a unified plan of action Obama himself has warned of what he called the progressive circular firing squad and one of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States is a certain kind of rigidity where we say ah I'm sorry this is how it's going to be and then we start sometimes creating what's called a uh circular firing squad you sh shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from Purity and when that happens typically the overall effort and movement weakens the Federalist Society has been marching in the same direction for decades and the world we're living in is the result of that very focused cooperation the blessing and the curse of conservativism seems to be its investment in absolutes it finds ANS and it sticks with them contradictory evidence and collateral damage be damned I don't personally have it in me to muster quite that much cognitive dissonance on a daily basis but some people really seem to love it all I know for sure is that until we get money out of politics we'll continue seeing a handful of people like Leonard Leo with pretty Niche views that do not reflect the will of the majority wielding outsized influence over all the rest of us go to mve to amend.org to get involved in the movement to get money out of politics not sponsored shout out to my newest supporters as well as supporters in my Royal tiers and a very special shout out to my multiplay Platinum supporters t l tranger Lucas Joshua Cole Thomas Johnson safia Sams Anthony Giles Tay and Brett Ponch your generosity makes this channel what it is so thank you check out the link in the description to join us over on patreon if you like this video you'll also enjoy the one that I made about why conservatives hate George Soros thanks so much for watching have a good day bye-bye