On Meet the Press, Trump was asked whether he would rely on executive action in the manner of President Obama. “I won’t refuse it. I’m going to do a lot of things,” Trump replied. “I mean, [President Obama] led the way, to be honest with you,” he added. But rest assured, Trump noted, “I’m going to use [executive actions] much better and they’re going to serve a much better purpose than he’s done.”

So after years of reveling in criticisms of Obama’s constitutional neglect, including rather sober and well-documented criticisms (if I do so say myself), a plurality has nominated a man who doesn’t even pretend for campaign purposes to respect the Constitution (say what you will about the current president, he certainly promised to respect the Constitution and the separation of powers during his first presidential campaign). This suggests that for a large part of the base, hostility to various unilateral actions by Obama was about dislike of Obama, not in defense of the rule of law. The constitutionalist vote went primarily to Ted Cruz (who wrote a very good introduction to my book), but that vote turned out to be rather small, judging not only by Trump’s victory but also by the fact that Cruz emphasized other issues.