The political right makes claim on the Constitution. "After all," they argue, "those powers not expressly granted to the Federal government are reserved for the States."
I'll acknowledge that the Constitution does not grant power to the Feds for education, healthcare, or welfare: but so what? There are plenty of illegitimate governmental activities that the right supports: invading other countries without congressional authority, racial profiling, and suppression of voting rights - to name a few. It's awfully convenient that they embrace an expansive view of the 1st Amendment for campaign speech and religious liberty, while they ignore the 9th Amendment ("the Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage other [rights] retained by the people") and 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying "any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws."
They claim to embrace "originalism" when it supports an argument to conserve privilege, but then brazenly disregard originalism to redefine the 2nd Amendment. At least when the left veers from the strict letter of the Constitution, we do it to help people or protect people - not to intimidate or dominate vulnerable communities.
The hypocrisy doesn't stop Conservatives from wrapping themselves in the flag though - and the Constitution - and the Bible - when any one of these icons can be used to rationalize a policy or act of exploitation. In this respect, the rhetoric seems absurdly transparent, because the policies advocated by Conservatives aim to weaken and corrupt the public authority so privileged citizens can mis-lead our consumers, exploit our workers, co-opt our national wealth, and hoard our resources. In other words, this supposed Constitutional fetish of conservatives is just a cover for the entitlement of established white men to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Liberals speak in Constitutional terms much less, largely because we don't need to. Our causes have an immediate moral basis and practical logic that doesn't require an intermediate for authority. It's not right for cops to shoot unarmed citizens - or a power company to spill coal ash into a river - or a company to sell me a product they know is defective - regardless of whether it's in the Constitution or not. It's appropriate that our elected officials respond (sometimes) with regulation that protects those interests, and doing so at the Federal level has two significant advantages: 1) it creates a nationally-uniform regulatory environment for business, and 2) it takes advantage of economies of scale in rule-making and enforcement. Perhaps we should do a better job of maintaining our Constitution with Amendments that keep up with our evolving needs, but it's disingenuous of conservatives to ignore that the needs exist - and forget that they built this government too. After all, we all benefit from clean water, disease control, public healthcare, and public education (among other benefits of the Federal government).
The Constitution may not expressly grant power to the Federal authority for all those things we enjoy - and take for granted - but we might have an opportunity to change that . . .