Which was not an expression of approval, but a recognition of reality.
To be fair, that's (ship's sailed on the government ignoring the limits of its constitutional power) an unsatisfying response to the concerns.
If effectively says no concern is worth addressing, the constitution is 'inoperative', and that is a non-starter for a political position.
The thing is, to recognize there are at least two categories, which the right conflates:
Areas that may indeed have crossed a more reasonable line of constitutional authority; and the fact they on the right have a radical view for where they draw that line making all kinds of things that are and should be constitutional, unconstitutional by their radical version of the constitution. To them, the two are the same.
That's the thing, when you try to listen to a concern and discuss it, at any moment the next sentence is, 'so the income tax is unconstitutional'. Whoa, there, Rand Paul.
It's a hard talk to have with these people - but I don't dismiss it all out of hand.
The fact is, there are various interpretations of the constitution, and we have to pick one (at any given time).
The first thing to recognize, though, is that we ARE picking one, and no one version is 'the one written clearly in black in white and all the others are lies for agendas'.
The founding fathers themselves had conflicts over basic meanings of the constitution, and intentionally left parts of it very vague - look at the ninth and tenth amendments closing out the Bill of Rights - and had a very messy process of approval, over whether to specify some rights explicitly, making others seem less clear, leading to the Bill of Rights.
As long as people think the very small, vague constitution exactly and explicitly backs all their opinion, and anyone who disagrees with them is trying to get rid of the constitution altogether, there's not going to be much discussion. We could use people having a better understanding of the constitution, of what's reasonable.
It's unsettling to think the constitution is not clear on the specific things you are concerned about, but recognizing it is is the only way to get to a useful and honest discussion how to interpret it. To do anything else leaves it in the hands of ideologues to push radical agendas claiming they're the only ones who follow the constitution, as with Scalia et al.
People who want a political outcome like to say 'the constitution says so', because it's a powerful document everyone agrees to follow, trumping the debate over the politics and merit of the issue. And yet, it undermines the constitution and support for it, to misuse it and misrepresent it in this manner - not to mention the bad policy.
This is the sort of approach that takes issues out of the intended forum of rational debate, and lets things like money determine outcomes, where whoever can buy the huge megaphone to say 'THE CONSTITUTION SAYS SO ON MY SIDE' 10,000 times for every one peep of 'no it doesn't'.