Yes, absolutely. And what's changed is that we now have a massive number of people (on both sides) who no longer agree that these things are important, or at least who think that other things are more important - so much more important that "these things" (constitutional protections) can be circumvented when they get in the way of the "more important things".

Constitutional protections are largely running on institutional inertia at the moment. That's good - the institutions were supposed to do that - but it won't last forever.