The foment around Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing is yet another dramatic display of the disruption Trump’s bizarre cabinet choices are producing. At first, his unorthodox picks were readily dismissed. Even Karl Rove described Trump’s appointments as a ‘clown’ show and a ‘confirmation circus.’ Although it has been recognized that Trump is choosing loyalists to surround him, and therefore his choices are more strategic than that characterization might suggest, we are still missing what is most sinister at the heart of it all.

What we have missed is that the MAGA movement is nothing short of conservative revolution — an organized revolt against the established order led by highly educated elites. And, as with all revolutions, this rebellion has at its core a revolutionary ideology: Paleoconservatism.

Having an ideological bent is not new or unusual. Neoconservatism was the dominant ideology of the Republican party for decades and very closely associated with George W. Bush’s presidency. But neoconservatives’ beliefs were in harmony with democratic principles and civic republican values of rights and liberties. That is not so for paleoconservatism.

Like other conservatives, paleoconservatives oppose big government spending and the expansion of federal programs. But they also fundamentally differ. Paleocons do not care about individual rights, equality, or even free markets.

Paleoconservatives’ central message is that America is on the brink of destruction. Disrespect of God’s order, misguided preoccupations with individual advancement, and unfounded notions of equal rights have steadily ruined the country. Their goal is to bring the “Nation” back to its roots – whether that is understood as Christian, Religious, European, White, or some combination thereof.

Their revolutionary promise to restore Family, God, and Patriotism to the center of American politics found fertile ground in small towns, but also among certain segments of the well-heeled conservative right and within some African American, Latino, Asian, and immigrant communities.

Despite this momentous change, the magnitude of this ‘conservative revolution’ is not generally addressed. We know that key Republican figures from the 1990s and early 2000s, like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and all of George W. Bush’s entourage, have been sidelined. This has been attributed to Trump’s power over the Republican party and the disruption of individual extremists who appear to have achieved disproportionate influence, such as the members of the House Freedom Caucus. Yet, the supplanting of neoconservatism with paleoconservatism, as the distinctive ideological movement that animates today’s Republican party, has, by and large, remained hidden from public view.

Our fervent focus on Trump’s erratic, undisciplined behavior and the rage of white, male, blue-collar MAGA voters over the past several years, not only led us to widely underestimate the popularity of the Republican platform, but also to miss the potency of this revolt. Now that Trump’s entourage is set to seize control of the federal government, understanding the source behind the MAGA movement is vital.

Paleocons take their name from the idea of being traditionalists. The prefix “paleo,” meaning ‘ancient’ (as in the “paleo diet”), was self-chosen to underscore that this conservative movement stands in opposition to ‘neo’ (new)-conservativism.

I use the term ‘paleoconservatism’ to represent a web of traditionalist, nationalist, and populist ideals that connect the antics of Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn to the vitriol of Steve Miller and the Christian nationalism of Senator Josh Hawley and Speaker Mike Johnson. Only by understanding the glue that holds the disparate parts together can we make sense of our political climate.

There has been a lot of bickering over who is and is not a true paleocon. Yet, that is far less important than understanding how this ideology has redirected the Republican party and is shaping the second Trump presidency. Whether this brand of conservatives label themselves Identitarians, National Conservatives, Post-liberals, Neo-integralists, or Bronze Age-revivalists, or use some other ‘alt-right’ title – they all share the core tenets developed by paleoconservative theorists. In fact, when the White Nationalist, Richard Spencer, coined the term “alt-right,” he was not using the label to represent extremism, but to describe a growing trend among young conservatives away from the Republican establishment and the neocons.

To begin with, paleocons repudiate the idea that ‘equality’ and ‘individual liberty’ are cornerstones of American life and American democracy.

In 1976, paleoconservative intellectual and professor of literature at the University of Dallas, M. E. Bradford wrote The Heresy of Equality, in which he tells us that “Equality as a moral or political imperative, pursued as an end in itself…is the antonym of every legitimate conservative principle”; For the only self-evident truth is that “there is no man equal to any other…Not intellectually or physically or economically or even morally. Not equal! Such is, of course, the genuinely self-evident proposition.”

Paleoconservatives reject “such decontextualized concepts as ‘humanity,’ ‘global justice,’ and ‘human rights,” for as the young paleo commentator, C. Jay Engel, explains these ‘Universalist’ ideals deny the natural social order and impose a dangerously false conformity across society. The consequences of this imposition are dire. Policy differences are “criminalized,” as Roger Kimball laments, publisher and editor of the right-wing journal New Criterion and senior member of the Claremont Institute. But the most acute danger they see is that America has been slipping into a “totalitarian” version of democracy under the total domination of liberal “messianic politics.”

At fault is the liberal embrace of Enlightenment values – individual human rights over community, science over tradition, and reason over intuition. Michael Anton at the Claremont Institute argues that, “Science has spoken, and everyone better get on the “right side of History.” For these reasons, he claims that “the United States is not now, and has not been for some time, a constitutional republic as the founders and their heirs understood that term.” No longer are the “ends of our government…determined by the people through public deliberation constrained by moral and natural limits.” “The liberal administrative state “force[s] upon the people what “science,” the research universities and public intellectuals have determined they should want.”

In this topsy-turvy, illiberal (as in anti-liberal, anti-Enlightenment, anti-rational) interpretation of conservatism, not only Democrats, but establishment Republicans are the enemy. Paleocons like Charles Kesler, senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, condemn Republicans for their embrace of “libertarian excesses at the expense of virtuous, traditionalist aims.” Kesler’s vitriol also reflects paleoconservative thinking by being especially directed against the neocons, who are despised for being globalists and disregarding “the legitimacy of the nation-state and the illegitimacy of the imperious supranational organizations that seek to undermine it.”

For these illiberal nationalists, equality is poisonous to America, but so too is the way Americans have come to fetishize individualism. Senator Josh Hawley, in a 2019 speech, identified extreme individualism as the reason for the disintegration of American society. The problem, according to Hawley, is the American ideal of liberty is based on a myth of the “Promethean” individual – a god-like entity that denies the authority of church, family and patriotism, seeing itself as the sole author of reality. Separated from the collectives that form the bedrock of society, Americans have become “lost and unmoored.”

Against this unbounded liberal individualism, paleoconservatives want family, community, and God placed at the center of politics. “Parents ought to be encouraged to instruct their children in moral traditions, in the disciplines of private conduct, and in the ways of the world; churches ought to be supported in their endeavors to make religious knowledge the most important part of any educational system,” writes Russell Kirk, a founding father of paleocon theory and author of over thirty books.

Ultimately, paleocons want to transform America into a land of local religious constituents. The rights they defend are not individual rights, but the rights of specific groups to follow their historic traditions (think: the ‘old South’), with their unique codes of morality (especially with respect to race, gender and sexuality).

Education, abortion, gender fluidity, guns and immigration are issues they care deeply about because they represent the federal government’s unholy imposition on God-fearing localities.

Paleoconservatism is not new. But its power to influence national politics is. For decades, paleoconservatives languished on the margins of the Republican party. The movement was born in the 1930s in opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and choice to enter American troops in World War II. However, with their isolationist views and white nationalist rhetoric, they were shunned as racist, anti-semitic zealots.

The movement had a brief resurgence in the 1980s. First, the Heritage Foundation and the Claremont Institute were established, in 1973 and 1979 respectively, to provide a counter-conservative voice to libertarian-leaning think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute. Then, in the mid-1980’s, the prominent paleoconservative speechwriter and strategist (and later-to-be a three-time presidential hopeful), Pat Buchanan, brought this form of ‘traditional conservatism’ to the national stage when he was appointed White House Communications Director. With Ronald Reagan in the White House and the rise of Buchanan, the paleocons thought they would finally have a seat at the table. But Reagan and the Bushes after him embraced the neoconservatives. The paleocons were left out to dry.

Until the rise of Trump.

The dramatic economic, demographic, and technological upheavals of the early 21st century rendered paleoconservatives’ populist fearmongering, anti-globalist stance, and promise of national restitution a viable social and political movement. Trump came to power on the coattails of this established political movement and, symbiotically, Trump’s charisma and brash style helped this political movement grab hold of the Republican party.

Many MAGA leaders have been associated with paleoconservative institutions, including John Eastman, the lawyer who wrote the infamous memo advising Vice President Pence to disqualify the 2020 election; Michael Anton, conservative essayist and member of Trump’s National Security Council, who spreads conspiracy theories about the deep state; and Paul Weyrich, one of Trump’s early speech writers.

Now they control the country. Paleoconservative ideas are at the heart of the MAGA movement, uniting extremist groups and most of the individuals aligned with Trump. Josh Hawley tells us our country is built on the ‘convictions’ we learn in “Our communities of home and worship and labor”, and so, “the future of this country depends on rebuilding the communities that make us who we are.”

Vice President-elect JD Vance expressed these ideas at the Republican convention in a much more home-spun vernacular: “I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts. But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.”

Much of the Heritage Foundation’s plan for a second Trump term, “Project 2025,” reads like a paleoconservative template. The questionnaire they devised to screen Trump administration recruits provides many clues to their agenda, with applicants asked to ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ with statements like: “The permanent institutions of family and religion are foundational to American freedom and the common good.”

The moral of this story is that painting Trump and his cronies as bumbling fools or Machiavellian opportunists has cost us dearly. They may be opportunists, but they are also ideologues. Trump himself may have no political or ideological moorings, but through him these ‘traditional conservatives’ have been able to advance their agenda. In his recent interview with New York Columnist David Brooks, former White House official and close advisor to Trump, Steve Bannon said pointblank that he had been leading a populist revolt to achieve the “complete, total destruction of the deep state.” And he meant it. With Trump’s second term, they may well achieve their goals. Now that they have broad control over the three branches of government, they will most certainly do everything in their power to transform America into a Christian/Religious nation, and put ‘America First.’

Yet, we do not seem to have learned our lesson. As clownish as they may appear to Democrats and middle-of-the-road Republicans, we cannot continue to dismiss Trump and his confederates as kooks. In 2016, Steve Bannon let us know: “It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”

Part of the problem is that it is so hard to not think about politics as we always have. But that is what we must do. Because that is what they are doing.

Trump’s outlandish appointees are simply the canary in the coal mine. Robert Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, and Kash Patel have little or no relevant experience to run the departments they are being nominated to head. But that is the point. They have the qualifications that Trump’s people prioritize: fidelity to Trump and no fealty to our institutions or the constitution.

It is time to recognize the success and coherence of this political crusade. Only then will we be able to build defenses against it.