You can trace a lot of the ills of the country back to Newt Gingrich. Not the man himself, but how the press treated him.
Real oldsters remember how when he became Speaker, the press started treating him like some sort of co-president. He had daily press briefings which CNN would cover with the eagerness they'd later show for an empty podium 3 hours before a Trump rally.
And there were plenty of "open secrets" about him they all knew about during impeachment that they kept to themselves.
