The phrase America first’ in Trump’s 2016 inaugural address is nothing new, but it signalled the triumph of the ’paleoconservatives’ over the neo-cons and establishment liberals, an intellectual battle that has raged for over a century, particularly within the Republican party. The paleoconservative ideology, first and foremost, is steeped in isolationism and admiration of stable dictatorships such as Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. Backers included literati, such as HL Mencken, billionaire newspaper magnates, such as William Randolph Hearst, and heroic American figures, such as aviator Charles Lindbergh. Various conservative groups came to subscribe to the line that German culture was superior to the degenerating British liberal culture. These groups coalesced into a formidable political force to oppose Woodrow Wilson’s entry into WW I and later the war against fascism, opposing Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program as bolshevism.  There was more than a tinge of anti-immigrant racist beliefs driven by eugenicist ideology. Even the Democratic party fell for this lure, which ultimately supported the Chinese exclusion acts, on which Hitler would model the Jewish exclusion acts. Indeed, many of the literati were German spies, paid directly from Berlin for their activity in the US. This very line of thinking was given intellectual succour after the war by the likes of William F. Buckley jr., Jean Kirkpatrick, and Pat Buchanan. Heilbrunn has written a deeply illuminating book that shows where wrong-headed MAGA political philosophy lies – it’s the hollow cry of ‘America first’ that would only lead to the coddling of dictators, such as Vladimir Putin and Victor Orban. The second Trump election is already proof that America is coming last.