In this eighth edition of The Republic’s Conscience — Edition 22, continuing the 10-day The First Amendment as Signal Architecture series, Nicolin Decker advances the framework into the institutional limits of constitutional interpretation under communicative scale and amplification pressure.

Building upon Day 7’s distinction between communicative signal and lawful authority, the episode argues that constitutional systems may experience substantial strain and declining interpretive coherence while remaining formally lawful within the constitutional order itself. The analysis distinguishes unlawful governmental action from lawful structural strain under amplification conditions.

Within this framework, courts are structurally equipped to adjudicate constitutional violations, but are not designed to eliminate communicat ...