[technothrasher]

We (the US) put a high bar on it because the Crown was using it as a way to attack political enemies and we didn’t want to follow suit. It is such a high bar in this country that it is effectively dead law, as nobody has been tried for it since soon after WWII, and very very few people have been convicted, and of those several had their convictions overturned.

The current administration does, however, throw the term around against its political enemies quite a bit, as have people in general pretty much throughout history.

[jfengel]

The Constitution put a pretty high bar on a lot of things. They put an enormous thumb on the scale of the status quo, which benefits some and harms a lot of others. Especially since the proponents of the status quo get to now put their hands on their hearts and say "gosh, I'd like to fix that injustice, but the holy Constitution means I just can't."