In 2025, a right-populist government in the U.S. is waging an ambitious campaign to cut back the scale and reach of the national government – while affirming a powerful unitary executive. This dramatic process puts in question many accounts of political power. If we have a ‘capitalist state,’ why would economic elites aim to limit its power and even its ability to function? If the ‘administrative state’ registers decades of efforts to expand social provision and put guardrails around market processes, why would a popular majority support Trump’s antistatism? To answer these questions means rethinking relations among political power, socioeconomic relations, and the national government. We start with two famous books about power in the United States. C. Wright Mills published The Power Elite in 1956 – Robert Dahl’s Who Governs? appeared five years later. Mills asserted that a power elite dominates the U.S. and defines the shape and actions of the government. Dahl denied the existence of a coherent power elite or a unified state acting on its behalf. Instead, he saw a rough democracy (a polyarchy) with multiple divisions and inequalities, framed by democratic themes. In light of the many political and social changes of six subsequent decades, we ask again: Who governs? How should we understand key features of the state/government in the U.S.? What agents have a primary role in shaping governance?