The mainstream press is obsessed with Trump’s inner circle. In March, James Politi of the Financial Times wrote, “narrowly ahead in the polls against Joe Biden, Trump now has the backing of a small group of seasoned campaign operatives and a tightly knit entourage of former officials eager to apply his ideas.” In another article titled, “How MAGA Republicans plan to make Donald Trump’s second term count,” the Economist observes that “a professional corps of America First populists are dedicating themselves to ensuring that Trump Two will be disciplined.” Rather than allow the GOP intelligentsia (who, according to this narrative, constrained Trump’s America First agenda) to infiltrate the White House again, a cadre of true believers will unquestioningly execute his plans to shut down the US-Mexico border, unleash political retribution on his enemies, and slap tariffs on all Chinese-made goods.

There is undeniably something appealing to this analysis. Vaguely Gramscian, such journalism promises insight into the “organic intellectuals” behind Trumpism. An America First inner circle also furnishes an easy target against which to organize, for now there will be no “adult in the room” to mask Trump’s authoritarianism.

The problem with these stories, however, is that unlike Gramsci they do not follow the trail down to civil society, the hidden abode where we might find the social and institutional bases of the Republican Party. On such accounts, the intellectual movement behind MAGA emerged as if from the ether to undermine the once dominant politics of compromise.