This. The illusion that you could fend off tyranny with a piece of paper was always a bit ridiculous, and it shows.

Arguably it's purpose is to define where government responsibility ends and tyranny begins. Very useful if the population it applies to cares about it being violated

The Magna Carta was meant to formalise that spec 800 years ago.

I suspect there is a hysteresis loop - it has to get really bad before the population changes phase.