It's not the public's job to leap all over every new thing that comes down the pike. The public trusts its legislators, in a representative democracy, to carry its water. Career politicians forget this, and get paid off by lobbyists with hidden agendas. They take the thirty pieces of silver, and breach the public trust; then lie and cover up and run again, and the public is still busy trying to make a living, take care of kids and get from one day to the next, and reflexively reelect the corrupt-but-familiar devil they know rather than someone they've never heard of who is being vilified by the devil-they-know. And on and on. That's why it always takes a deep crisis for people to finally act; and why humans have to have periodic revolutions.
You are correct that America was founded on principles specifically meant to counteract those mechanisms. But the left studied the principles with the express purpose of finding ways to subvert our system, by surrupticiously capturing all public institutions and corrupting them, which they set out to do over the last century and gradually accomplished. Finally, they have captured the fort -- the presidency, and the enforcement arms of goverment, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA. The public is now effectively under anti-constitutional martial law.
It is up to the public to hold the political class accountable. It is not being done. The political class has become disconnected from the people. The people get the government they deserve. Obama got elected easily in 2008 and 2012. The Dems have controlled the Senate since 2007. If you look at the single digit approval ratings for Congress, I don't believe the public trusts its legislators.
The public is now effectively under anti-constitutional martial law.
Where are the outcry and outrage? Who is enforcing martial law? What happened to the "people's representatives?" Who defends the Constitution?