Kangaroo courts, climate fictions, and Larry and Richard: Weekend reads for March 2, 2024

Some things worth your attention

What’s been on our minds most this week? The right-wing-dominated Supreme Court’s decision to weigh in on the question of Trump’s immunity on charges of election interference — and thus to put its weight behind Trump’s re-election bid.

As we’ve been thinking about this decision that should never have been, we’re reading about why Americans have ever thought of the courts as neutral, why it matters that it has rarely ever been so, and what work needs to be done to change course. We invite you, of course, to read along with us.

We’ve also selected readings that we think are worth your time on everything from the challenge of red-state medicine in the wake of Dobbs, to the fiction of a warmer future, to the fragile existence of cowboy storytelling and song.

We hope the articles we’ve collected below for our subscribers to read challenge you to see the world in new ways. Thanks as always for reading The Ink and continuing to support us (and if you’re not a paid subscriber already, we encourage you to join our community).

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On the politics of the courts

A skeptic’s view of a dangerous institution

I think of the Supreme Court the way Batman thinks of Superman: an extremely powerful being who is untethered from the laws of physics and therefore must always be considered a threat to free society. Batman never falls for Kal-El’s space-copaganda and always has a plan to protect himself and his city just in case Clark gets super mad one day. [The Nation]