Public institutions suffer reputational damage when partisan drama Is televised, streamed or leaked. What the public sees is: ill-considered legislation has to be cleaned up by the courts, confirmation processes turn dirty and selective leaking is used in an effort to flip narrow majorities.

Legal scholar, historian and author John Vile points to televised (or streamed) hearings and the failure of Congress to act decisively on difficult issues as contributing to our current state of affairs but insists that partisan drama is not new in our judicial history.