Democrats and their corporate media allies like to quietly redefine political terms to suit their needs. Threats to “democracy” are really threats to unaccountable, left-of-center government bureaucracy; “misinformation,” along with its “dis-” and “mal-” cousins, is any fact or narrative that is inconvenient for the political left; and basically anyone or anything who runs afoul of the Democratic party’s agenda can instantly become a “racist.”
One such term that had lain dormant for much of the Biden presidency has re-emerged this week: “constitutional crisis,” — defined as anything that the Trump-run Executive Branch does which Democrats disapprove of but are powerless to stop.
On January 20, President Trump renamed the the Obama-era United States Digital Service to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the media’s recounting of events goes, Trump then handed the reins over to Elon Musk, and within moments, a torrent of constitutional crises erupted all over the country.
When Elon hired a Generation Z hacker who once went by the online handle, “Big Balls,” a constitutional crisis promptly ensued. Just days later, DOGE set its sights on a $500,000 government-funded program to promote atheism in Nepal, resulting in another constitutional crisis. Then DOGE began scrutinizing all manner of nonsensical USAID grants, which prompted yet another devastating constitutional crisis.
As far back as 2017, the media were seeing constitutional crises around every corner. Nancy Pelosi once remarked in 2019 that Trump had triggered one, and the cable (CNN, MSNBC) and broadcast (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks eagerly parroted that claim 386 times in five days.
The journalists are very frustrated that nobody’s taking their protestations seriously anymore. But it was their own overuse of the term that caused it to lose whatever potency it once had. After all, what does a journalist really expect of you when he bursts into your bedroom at 11 p.m., sobbing about the constitutional crisis lurking under his bed? And really, what can you do — except get him a glass of water, tuck him back in, and make a show of checking under his bed before you return to your room?
