From Mike Lee at National Review, Conservatives Should Embrace Principled Populism:
All human history teaches us that people cannot be trusted with unaccountable power; therefore, freedom and security are best protected by dispersing power. Federalism and the separation of powers may sound like legalistic abstractions, but in truth they are as important, concrete, and guaranteed under our Constitution as the right to vote or of due process.
Elites hate the transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness that the Constitution requires of federal policymaking. That’s why they have spent decades circumventing its guardrails. It is not a coincidence that our era of inequality and distrust has been marked by frenzied centralization of political power. Power has been pulled up and away from the people and states and toward the federal government. Within Washington, it has been transferred from the people’s elected representatives in Congress to the two other branches, especially the unaccountable and ever-growing administrative state.
As principled populists, Republicans would not only apply conservative insights to solve discrete problems but also anchor conservatism to the Constitution and radically decentralize Washington’s policymaking power. The new Congress should seize back its Article I legislative authority, ideally with President Trump’s help. Only by putting Congress back in charge of federal lawmaking can Trump make good on his promise to put the American people back in charge of Washington.
HKO
Trump is a pragmatist with many traits of a progressive. While he feels he can ordain a vigorous economy I do not know that he feels committed to the Constitution ideologically but he may find pragmatic reasons. The framers saw both.
For those still fearful of the power now in Trump’s hands, they should come to appreciate the limits to power in the Constitution.
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