Another attraction of a strengthened federalism is that it attracts more support across party lines than do most other contemporary issues. California Democrats and Texas Republicans are likely to look benignly on rules and laws that increase their states’ authority. A similar decentralization (with appropriate safety nets) of health care might be supported by a bipartisan congressional majority, when the current (or a revised) Obamacare remain resistant to political approval.

It's time—past time—for the dual causes of a lessened presidency and a heightened federalism to be major subjects of our political discourse.

Julian Zelizer: An interesting rumination about some of the potential trends in politics. You lay out a strong case for a potential period of decentralization—away from the imperial presidency, away from a strong welfare state, away from nationalism and toward something smaller and more local.

I agree with much of what you argue, though I am more skeptical about the potential for change (putting aside debates about whether all of these changes are a good thing). As you have taught us in your books, change doesn’t come easily in American politics. Institutions and organizations endure. Presidential elections, presidents, social movements often encounter the persistence of pre-existing regimes.

With some of the issues that you highlight, this might be the case again. For all of the uproar over President Trump’s aggressive use of presidential authority, it is easy to imagine that when he is gone, politicians in both parties will settle with the status quo rather than changing it. After the 2008 election, with all of the uproar over President Bush’s vast expansion of the national security state, we didn’t really see many transformations after a historic election that seemed to be a mandate for change. Even during President Nixon’s demise, Congress passed laws reasserting its power (such as the War Powers Act of 1973 and the Budget Reform of 1974)—yet the presidency seems to be doing pretty well. Given that right now Republicans control Congress as well, they might not be willing to do that much to reform government if they anticipate keeping control once Trump is gone.

The social welfare state is certainly under attack, here and elsewhere, yet we have also seen how the popularity of many programs, such as Social Security and Medicaid, proves to be a powerful counterforce to conservative retrenchment. I do think federalism is enjoying a period of resurgence—with liberals also turning to states and localities as the engine for progressive change, not simply the right—federal programs still hold considerable appeal. I don’t think that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has lost the argument just yet.

As for the kind of right-wing nationalism that has flared all over the globe, I think that many people hope that you are correct. But let’s wait and see. Few people thought that the two-terms of the first African American president, someone who is pretty progressive on international and domestic policy, would end with the election of Donald Trump and a right-wing, nationalist, America-First campaign that seemed like a throwback to the era of George Wallace.