In 1971, shortly before he was appointed to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon, Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote a memo to the American Chamber of Commerce urging business leaders to fight the prevailing liberal agenda, particularly on college campuses, and protect the corporate interests that he had championed before becoming a judge. A new podcast, Master Plan, by David Sirota, founder and editor of the crusading news site The Lever, traces how that memo served as a blueprint for a conservative revanche that now seems almost irreversible. Even before Donald Trump appointed his confederates to the Supreme Court, the 2010 Citizens United decision had already upended any meaningful campaign-finance restrictions. Sirota, who co-wrote the dystopian satire Don’t Look Up, has a flair for conspiracy theories, but they are hard to dismiss at a time when a Trump-aligned majority overturned Roe v. Wade and, most recently, ruled that the president has almost limitless immunity from criminal prosecution. —Alessandra Stanley