Matt Beat is a teacher, video producer, podcaster, and musician based in Kansas. His YouTube channels Mr. Beat and The Beat Goes On, have accumulated more than 500,000 subscribers and 100 million views, helping expand his "classroom" to around the world. Mr.Beat's speciality is American history, but he also has a big passion for geography and economics. He has a band called Electric Needle Room, known for original indie pop songs about all of the American Presidents. Matt co-hosts an iHeartMedia podcast called Jobsolete. For press and more, visit: https://www.iammrbeat.com/bio.html.

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Other things are not so easy to make relevant. The Compromise of 1790, which was the first of three incredibly important compromises made between Northern politicians and Southern politicians to keep the United States together, isn’t that particularly interesting to learn about. Sure, it’s a pivotal event in the early history of the country, but it’s kind of a boring story. It only means something to most of us today when you connect it with the cultural divides of today.

Enter the Supreme Court of the United States. It’s currently made up of just nine people, each who arguably have more power than any politician or plutocrat in the United States. They are at the top of the judicial branch of the American federal government, the branch that interprets laws. Interpret? Well humans can interpret things however they want to, can’t they? This, alone, is a tremendous power, and just five interpretations from the Court can be carved in stone as a precedent that can be used for decades, if not centuries. The Court has basically complete discretion over which cases it decides to hear. Of the 7,000 to 10,000 requests for cases it gets each year, it often only takes between 80 and 85 of those. It has the power to overthrow decisions of all courts underneath it.

The Supreme Court’s power has grown tremendously since the early 1800s. Beginning with the case Marbury v. Madison, which institutionalized the idea of judicial review, the Court slowly became a powerful force to hold the other two branches of government, the legislative and executive, accountable. Judicial review is the process by which the judicial branch can determine whether or not the actions of the executive and legislative branches are constitutional. This means that if the President issues an executive order the Court thinks is unconstitutional, they can strike it down. If Congress passes a law the Court thinks is constitutional, it can uphold it. Beginning in the 1950s, the Court became more overtly political. In the 1960s, it really ramped it up, to a point where people began electing the President based on who they might appoint to join it.

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