Comment by pqtyw

Perhaps but "the framers of the US constitution" are almost always over idealized. It was the very early stages of democracy (even if you can call it that). When elected to office they regularly used they official powers to supress political opponents, partisan enmity was endemic and the levels of corruption were pretty extreme (of course there was only so much money to go around due to very low taxes). Trump is unhinged of course but some of the founders or early US politicians weren't too far off...

The constitution was more of an aspirational ideal than a binding document back then since there were very limited ways too enforce it (e.g. the only way to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts was by electing a new president/congress). The First Amendment was also interpreted and viewed extremely different that it is now before the 1900s...