I don’t base any of this on history. I think we’re way beyond that. I base everything on Breitbart’s notion that politics is downstream of culture.
Pence isn’t even remotely plugged into the culture.
. . . and I suppose that goes double for me.
There’s one cultural factor which - long shot - could be changed for the better.IMHO the reason “the media” has gone rogue with its fake news is the fact that Republican politicians are intimidated into not suing for libel. And that is down to the unanimous 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision which claimed that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”Antonin Scalia pointed out that from an original intent POV that is nonsense.The Federalists were desperate to suppress controversy over the effect of the Constitution on peoples’ rights, and the last thing they were thinking about when they promoted and ratified the Bill of Rights was trying to change anyone’s rights. As the Ninth Amendment practically says in so many words. The enumerated rights in the first 8 amendments were only those rights which tyrants had suppressed historically; all others were too numerous to mention and were nowhere codified all in one place. But the First Eight Amendments were crafted not to disturb the unenumerated rights.
Thus, no one has ever thought that 2A’s preservation of the RTKBA impinged at all on anyone’s right not to be subjected to armed assault. The idea is absurd. And yet the claim that 1A restricts libel actions is a claim that a politician’s reputation can legally be subjected to assault with a (reputationally deadly) press. It’s humbug, and Republicans must file libel suits - and antitrust suits - for injunctive relief which will make journalists as loathe to libel Republicans as they already are to libel Democrats.
Now that would be a restorative cultural change.