This is a late stage capitalism issue where too much power has been consolidated into the hands of too few, and so much as a single comment made publicly can blacklist you from participating in any cultural event for the rest of your life.
Think of how many radio stations, venues, internet channels etc have been bought up by megacorp.
We have all the bad parts of a Gibson cyberpunk dystopia and none of the flying cars or bio-enhancements.
in the sense in which the entire constitutional apparatus is falling appart
because citizen-president Trump is a power bully
but this was bound to happen. as we transition from orality to literacy to digital-literacy and beyond
consider why the laws are written down. consider the way language became computer languages. and then realize that what was written down must now grapple with the new technological paradigm of digital paper that writes on itself
it's like we have (re-)discovered paper and the very idea of writing down the law is a techno-social innovation sweeping the land
If the state doesn't in fact do these things then you have a different state and the constitution is just a piece of paper.
It absolutely is not. In fact it is a restriction on the state.
The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are inherent. They are not derived from the government. We have them by nature of existing. The Bill of Rights prohibits the government from infringing on these inherent rights.