In the eight years of the Obama presidency, there were three cycles of policymaking. First came the attempt to pass an ambitious liberal agenda through a Democratic-controlled Congress, which ended with the Republican House takeover in 2010. Then came the attempt to strike bargains, grand and otherwise, with John Boehner and congressional Republicans, which petered out early in Barack Obama’s second term. And finally came the imperial phase, in which activists appealed to the president to claim powers that he had previously abjured, and override or sidestep congressional gridlock on immigration, climate policy and health care through the power of the presidential pen.

Under Donald Trump the imperial phase might arrive much sooner. The possibility for further ambitious conservative legislation seems to have died away already; it's hard to imagine Trump successfully making deals with Democrats if his party loses the House in November, and so two years may stretch ahead of us in which literally nothing passes Congress except the necessary budget deals.

In the last few weeks we’ve had a preview of how pro-Trump voices will fill that vacuum — with appeals that mirror the appeals of liberal activists in the late Obama years. Dear Mr. President, don’t you realize that you have the power to do [thing that most people assume the president doesn’t have the power to do]? Dear Mr. President, fortune favors the bold. Dear Mr. President, just act.

For instance, two weeks ago Michael Anton, erstwhile national security staffer and “Flight 93 Election” essayist, took to The Washington Post with the claim that birthright citizenship isn’t required by the 14th Amendment — and that therefore the president himself, through his constitutional powers, can end jus soli via executive fiat.