American Seances

This episode argues that the Supreme Court of 1874–1888 (the "weighty" court) would have refused to constitutionalize abortion, grounding its view in the Slaughterhouse Cases and a narrow reading of the 14th Amendment that leaves family, morality, and medical regulation to the states.Rather than moral judgment, the court would emphasize federalism and judicial restraint: striking Roe and agreeing with Dobbs' result as a jurisdictional default, denying national fetal personhood, and leaving abortion regulation to state law or Congress.

This episode examines how Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and the Taney Court would have approached Roe v. Wade, arguing that under Taney's constitutional framework abortion would be a state criminal and medical matter, not a federal rights issue.It explains Taney's commitment to strict federalism, his narrow view of liberty that excluded bodily autonomy and women's individual constitutional status, and why Roe's reasoning would collapse for structural and jurisdictional reasons in that era.

This episode imagines how Anti‑Federalists like Brutus, Patrick Henry, and George Mason would react to Donald Trump’s unilateral tariff actions, viewing them as evidence that the Constitution enabled centralized executive power that bypasses local accountability.It outlines their distrust of national economic planning, their belief that tariffs function as taxes imposed without broad consent, and their warning that consolidated federal authority threatens local liberty and self‑government.

This episode contrasts William Seward’s 19th‑century view of national self‑determination with Jefferson Davis’s aristocratic theory of inherited sovereignty. It explains how Davis, as a Confederate statesman, would likely interpret the Russia‑Ukraine conflict as a struggle to defend a historic political unity rather than a fight for democratic independence.The episode outlines Davis’s two core beliefs—sovereignty in peoples defined by lineage and the illegitimacy of outside interference—and shows how those ideas would lead him to justify Russian efforts to preserve territorial unity while condemning foreign support for Ukrainian independence.

William Henry Seward would interpret the Russia–Ukraine war as a struggle between an aging imperial order and the rising force of popular sovereignty, with republicanism, commerce, and mass political participation dissolving dynastic power.From that view he’d back Ukraine both morally — as a people’s right to self-government — and strategically — to prevent unchecked imperial expansion that would destabilize the international order and U.S. interests.

This episode imagines how President James K. Polk — a 19th-century expansionist and strategic realist — would interpret the Russia-Ukraine war. It explains Polk's priorities: defending territorial integrity, using decisive but limited measures, and grounding support in clear national interest rather than moral rhetoric.
Polk would favor arming and backing Ukraine as a means to contain Russian power, avoid direct military intervention, and insist on narrowly defined objectives to prevent mission creep. The episode contrasts his pragmatic, results-oriented foreign policy with modern ideological framings of the conflict.

This episode applies Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony to modern immigration raids, showing how cultural institutions, media, and political rhetoric normalize exclusion and transform enforcement into a ritual of national identity. It examines how these spectacles shape working-class attitudes, the emergence of counter-hegemonic solidarities, and why lasting change requires building new common-sense narratives through education, movement building, and culture.

This episode imagines Karl Marx analyzing modern immigration raids, arguing they function less as border control and more as a tool for labor management—keeping wages low and workers compliant through fear and precariousness.It traces how raids divide the working class, protect capital’s interests, and create contradictions in a system that relies on but rejects undocumented labor, while suggesting solidarity could alter the dynamic.

In this episode, Max Weber speaks back to John Locke through a sociological lens, using U.S. strikes on drug-running boats as a case study.Weber interprets these interdictions as examples of modern, bureaucratic, and routinized violence, and raises questions about legitimacy, the blurring of policing and war, and the autonomous expansion of state power.

This episode imagines how John Locke would judge U.S. drone strikes on drug-running boats, weighing the natural-rights justification for defensive force against the risk of arbitrary executive power.Locke would likely accept force against violent cartels but insist on clear public rules, evidence, and oversight to keep government action accountable and prevent abuses.