I don't know what people might see in mainstream media, because I don't consume any, but online sources and activist emails seem to call out a constitutional crisis almost daily.
What the heck is a constitutional crisis and why does it matter?
Most adults in this country know that there is a constitution, and that it confers the right to talk shit and the right to carry as many guns as you can strap on, and also some other stuff further down. Varying percentages of people will know specifics about other portions, even going so far as to know about the whole thing end to end. This helps if you're going to try to run things or want to keep tabs on the people who already do.
The country used to be run by people who understood the principles and methods contained in the document. Quite a few of them are still in office though, sadly, not the Oval Office at the moment. And this is the source of constitutional crises, one after another and sometimes piled two or three deep.
Constitutionally, Congress is supposed to have delineated powers and responsibilities, one of which is to defend against a dictatorial president acting like a monarch. In the faster and faster paced arena of international relations from the end of World War II until today, the executive branch has needed to be able to react nimbly to changing circumstances. Congress has ceded power to the executive branch on the basis that the president's people and the departments could be trusted to make good decisions in the national interest. Then the beginning of the 21st Century saw a massive surrender of Congressional oversight as the nation panicked after the 9-11 attacks.
Partisanship made the situation worse, as well as anti-democratic forces in the business sector. Business interests have pumped money into both parties, but really took over in the GOP. They use their elected employees to advance the concept of centralized leadership and limited voting. This puts the Constitution under stress, which has increased steadily since 1981. But only recently did the ideological and financial pressure groups decide that the basic concept of the United States as we had known it wasn't worth supporting anymore.
Wealth is global. Jobs are sent to other countries by corporate titans in this one without a second thought. A rich person's net worth might be described in a US publication in US currency, but it's a multinational fortune. A publication in another country would translate it into the currency with which its readers are familiar, because ultimately it doesn't make that much difference. Filthy rich is filthy rich in any language.
Ideology is global. Religious zealots who want to claim the planet for their One True God® might assign a value to a particular nation as crucial to whatever piece of their mythology that they're trying to enact, but the goal overall is world domination, same as it ever was. Business leaders and religious leaders just use people. Some of the religious ones might mean well, but at some point the needs of an abstract god will take precedence over any individual or group that seems to be impeding progress toward the Grand and Glorious Day of whatever the fck.
So: the most powerful influences on the current regime are greed and coercive religion. The founders wrote extensively against both of these, but they acknowledged that the only real defense against them was an educated and informed populace.
Greed and ideology have infected Congress and the Judicial Branch. The federal courts were supposed to act as the referee when it came to both executive overreach and Congress passing laws that conflicted with the Constitution. However, between ambitious judges who can be bought for a few luxury vacations and a motor home, and religious hardliners on the bench with them, the Supreme Court, and quite a bit of the rest of the judiciary has become a tool of corporate and religious interests under the umbrella of the Republican Party. At the same time, Republicans in the House and Senate don't act as a check on executive power, they act as willing and energetic enablers. They have no pride and no sense of their own power, bowing instead to the mighty president.
On the Democratic side, the stark division between two opposing teams rather than "loyal opposition" has led them to have to defend their own occupants of the White House perhaps more than they might have when the branches of government were more distinct and feeling their own power. That being said, they are much more likely than the Republicans to consign one of their own members for discipline and penalties, which usually blows up in their faces as they lose a seat once their erring colleague has been ousted. We do the right thing and no one is inspired. At the same time, Republicans behave in openly corrupt ways and everyone just shrugs. The public is steeped in the notion that absolutely all politicians are completely scummy, and the Republicans know that the system is so broken from their sabotage that no one can really hurt them. This is especially true now that they control so much of the courts.
So what's a constitutional crisis? The whole damn thing is a constitutional crisis. But out on the street the sun doesn't suddenly darken, or the earth rumble and shake every time corrupt scumbags take away a little more freedom, hurt marginalized groups, start fights with our allies and cozy up to our global rivals. Life seems basically unchanged. Did anyone notice a sudden drastic difference in their lives this summer, when the Supreme Court made the president an untouchable king? No.
No regular person will be motivated by the words "constitutional crisis" any more than they are motivated by the words "climate change" or "mass extinction event." Nothing hits like a massive asteroid impact, so it goes virtually unnoticed. We just keep getting up and going to work each day, hoping to stay housed and fed, and afraid of having to pay for medical care.
The consequences show up off to the side, happening to "other people." The reactions from those unaffected range from, "It sucks to be you," to "thoughts and prayers."
I'm sure there were Germans who managed to be just the right age and in just the right place to go through the entire loss of World War II without missing a meal or facing an enemy directly. The same thing is true here. Lots and lots of people will experience only the basic economic challenges of late stage capitalism on an overpopulated planet and never believe that they could have made anything better by so simple and stupid a thing as voting. Maybe they're right, since really adjusting our course away from collapse would require levels of sensitivity that our species has never exhibited in all of history. Oddly, it is possible to make a great destructive difference with your silly little vote. We are where we are because of a combination of people who voted directly for it and people who didn't vote at all.
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