Citizens failed to notice constitutional structures being compromised.

Evidence

Partly it was the Congressmen … The model of a joint hearing.. . was.., a fiasco. But finally, it is we the people who are responsible … Throughout that summer, we listened but we did not really hear. The basic constitutional structures we have labored for two eenturies to preserve are so little a part of our understanding that we eould watch them compromised without even noticing. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 612

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the public’s constitutional illiteracy and whether basic civic education on constitutional structure is itself a first-order civic duty.
• QUESTION: What specific compromise of constitutional structures is being referenced here? The context suggests the Iran-Contra/post-Watergate hearings, but it’s never named in the passage itself.
• XREF: connects to: People mostly fail to understand how their own institutions work. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 1046