When President Obama was testing — and exceeding — the limits of his constitutional powers, liberals grabbed their pompoms and cheered. Now that Donald Trump is in power, they're rediscovering that constitutional safeguards are there for everybody. When Obama grew the deficit, Republicans and tea partiers insisted there was a debt crisis. Now, the president-elect says we must “prime the pump” with up to $1 trillion in deficit spending, and the former deficit hawks slumber in their nests.

Regardless, that excerpt from “A Man for All Seasons” is not intended to imply that Trump is the devil — or that Obama is. Suffice it to say that one partisan's devil is another partisan's angel. I'm more interested in breaking the cycle and seizing an opportunity.

One of my most cherished principles is the importance of localism, subsidiarity or what is most commonly called federalism. The idea is pretty simple: People on the ground in their own communities have a better understanding of how they want to live and what they want from government. Local politicians are easier to hold accountable, and culture-war arguments aren't abstractions when the combatants have to look each other in the eye.

Normally, under Democratic presidents, liberals treat any discussion of federalism as code for wanting Jim Crow or even slavery. They mock anyone who invokes the 10th Amendment, which holds that any rights not constitutionally spelled out for the federal government belong to the states or the people. I could provide countless quotes to demonstrate this, but again, I'm trying not to score partisan points but to seize an opportunity.