The thing about the cult republican mindset is that once you remove and denature all objective standards, essentially once you sack the referees, anything can mean anything you want it to mean.

This is how Antonin Scalia can argue with a straight face that torture isn't "cruel or unusual punishment" or that "Mission Accomplished" didn't mean they claimed the war was over.

It's also why all media is "liberal," academia is "biased," judges are "biased," etc.

You have to remove the referees (the press, academia, the judiciary) in order to create your own reality from scratch.

It's why republicanism is basically a Scientology cult.  There is no grounding in reality anymore.