American Seances

This episode imagines how President James Monroe would view modern U.S. interdiction in the Caribbean, from Coast Guard seizures to naval attacks on cartel vessels.It argues Monroe would see these actions as necessary maintenance of hemispheric order: decisive, legitimate, restrained, and aimed at protecting trade, sovereignty, and regional stability rather than projecting empire.

In this episode we imagine how Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer would react to the Affordable Care Act. Drawing on his belief that freedom, competition, and voluntary charity drive moral and social progress, Spencer would view mandates, subsidies, and redistributive policies as coercive intrusions that undermine individual responsibility and erode civic virtue.While sympathetic to the goal of reducing suffering, Spencer would argue that state-managed welfare short-circuits moral development, stifles local social experimentation, and risks creating dependency. He would see the ACA as well-intentioned but dangerous in method—a moral hazard that, in his view, threatens long-term liberty and the evolutionary growth of character.

This episode explores how Chief Justice John Marshalls constitutional philosophy would have reacted to Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson, contrasting early 19th-century views of federal power with modern debates over substantive rights.It explains Marshalls emphasis on institutional legitimacy, flexible interpretation, and state authority over moral issues, and argues he would reject both Roes creative privacy doctrine and Dobbss rigid historical test while warning against doctrinal instability.

This episode examines how John Locke's ideas about self-ownership, consent, and the law of nature illuminate modern debates over vaccine mandates.It argues Locke would balance respect for individual judgment and religious toleration with the duty to prevent harm, supporting limited, evidence-based mandates enacted through legitimate democratic authority to protect the vulnerable.

Three Enlightenment thinkers—Voltaire, Diderot, and Condorcet—are imagined confronting modern vaccine skepticism, where abundant information is often misused to spread fear and falsehoods.Voltaire would mock superstition and vanity; Diderot would demand better education and public knowledge infrastructure; Condorcet would stress that vaccination is an issue of justice and civic duty, supporting transparent, reasoned public policy. Together they argue that reason, education, and social responsibility are the true remedies.

This episode imagines how Alexander Hamilton would judge Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, tracing the founding father’s principles on tariffs, industrial policy, and national finance to the challenges of the 21st-century global economy.Hamilton would sympathize with the goal of protecting strategic industries but would criticize the execution—arguing tariffs must be predictable, targeted, and embedded in a broader plan of credit, investment, and institutional support.

This episode traces the constitutional shift between the Lochner era and the New Deal Court and explains why judges after 1937 would defer to Congress and the executive on tariffs imposed under broad statutory authority like Section 232.Through landmark cases from West Coast Hotel and Jones & Laughlin to Curtis Wright and Yakis, it shows how deference to legislative purpose, delegation, and executive foreign‑policy power made judicial strikes against tariffs unlikely—turning constitutional doctrine from strict limits on governance into support for flexible, modern administration.

This episode examines how the Lochner-era Supreme Court, committed to strict separation of powers and a narrow view of congressional delegation, would likely rule on President Trump’s tariffs imposed under Section 232. It explains the era’s focus on non-delegation, key precedents like Panama Refining and Schechter Poultry, and why broad national-security justifications for tariffs would be seen as unconstitutional lawmaking by the executive.

This episode examines how the Taney Court, shaped by Jacksonian distrust of privilege and a preference for political branch decision-making, treated federal power over foreign commerce and tariffs. It argues that Taney would likely uphold modern, Congress-authorized tariffs—like those under Section 232—because he favored letting Congress and the president implement economic policy unless the Constitution clearly forbade it.The episode also notes Taney's limits: he opposed executive action taken without clear congressional authorization, as in his clash with Lincoln. Overall, the Taney Court preferred stability and political solutions over aggressive judicial intervention in economic matters.

This episode examines whether the early 19th‑century Marshall Court would strike down Donald Trump’s tariffs. Drawing on McCulloch, Gibbons, and cases about conditional legislation, it argues the Court would likely uphold congressional tariff power and the president’s delegated authority.Ultimately, the Marshall Court’s emphasis on national unity, broad federal commerce power, and deference in political and foreign‑affairs questions suggests it would leave tariff policy to Congress and the executive rather than the judiciary.