The "if" is not whether the US is presently in midst of a constitutional crisis. It is. The "if" is whether now proven criminality associated w POTUS' elxn dents his support w the GOP & their electorate. If it does not, a constitutional crisis is the least of your concern.
I've argued for some time that the real danger for the US as a constitutional republic will not be when it is proven the president & his team committed multiple crimes, of various degrees of severity, or even when it is confirmed they sabotaged the elxn in direct co-op w RUS.
Both of those were, essentially, forgone conclusions to anyone who was awake during 2015-2016. The truly dangerous period begins now & comes down to two Qs: i. will his electorate abandon him & ii. will his party abandon him?
Unfortunately, likely answer to both is "they won't" or, at least, not in sufficient numbers to make his continued tenure in office nonviable. If he maintains a strategic minority of support, akin to the one that elected him in the first place, in light of all these facts...
...then the country is faced w an executive who is obviously corrupt, who obviously broke the law to win the office, and whose radical, transformative agenda, in both a domestic & international context, will be perceived by many as fundamentally illegitimate. Now what?
Even if they run the board in mid-terms, the Ds are highly unlikely to push for impeachment, as their leadership has been signaling for sometime, and it is not at all a forgone conclusion that even after all this, Trump cannot again, likely w RUS aid, once again win in 2020.
My point is that in periods of crisis as severe as what is currently facing the US a momentary spasm of institutional response like we have seen tonight may actually make the overall situation still more volatile.
This a moment pregnant with expectation, rage, and desperation among both opponents and supporters of this president. Something, somewhere will have to snap and soon. I just fear that this won't be breakthrough of common sense but a breakdown of social order as such. /end
