The history of American democracy is the rebellion of the marginalized against the grotesque hypocrisy of our stated values, faced as they are with the reality of their social conditions. The only reason we have any freedoms is because the oppressed weaponized the noblesse oblige of a bunch of slave owners to carve it out for themselves.

There is no reading of American history where the press or the judiciary function as some conduit for the immortal "brilliance" or protection of the framers. One needs to only look at recent history, the condition of minorities in modern carceral state, being lied into war in Iraq, to recognize this. Further back, the judiciary was used to justify segregation, eugenics, and mass disenfranchisement. And the history of the press speaks quite bleakly for itself.

This kind of mentality, where individual agency is sacrificed in favor of "mythic" protections, is a big part of the reason things have become so precarious.