ENCORE: How The Powell Memo Changed America
With the 2026 midterms approaching and billions of dollars flooding into American elections, we're revisiting one of our most popular episodes of Master Plan.
In 1971, corporate lawyer Lewis Powell wrote a manifesto explaining how corporations and oligarchs could fight back against New Deal-era reforms and use their money to hijack American politics. For decades, the Powell Memo seemed like an urban legend — until our investigation uncovered new details about the people behind it, and how the memo’s author snuck his radical ideology into the Supreme Court.
Read the transcript and explore…
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