Their ascent to influence has come about not because Straussians sound like Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, Russell Kirk or even Robert Taft – or indeed anyone as far to the right as a classical liberal. Many Straussians would be now associated with the official left except for two complicating factors. The Democrats are less inclined than the Republicans to push the war policies favored by the Straussians. Although this reluctance may be due to their preoccupation with social questions at home, the Democrats are less open than the Bushites to Straussian imperial projects at the present time, if not necessarily for the future. Moreover, the establishment Right and its Republican organizational structure have become scavengers, living off yesterday’s leftist rhetoric. What Ryn calls the “new Jacobinism” of the neoconservative- and Straussian-controlled pseudo-Right is no longer “new.” It is the warmed-over rhetoric of Saint-Juste and Trotsky that the philosophically impoverished American Right has taken over with mindless alacrity. Republican operators and think tanks apparently believe they can carry the electorate by appealing to yesterday’s leftist clichés. But the Straussian grid into which they have placed themselves should not be confused with any intelligible or historical Right. Nor should Leo Strauss be placed on this side, to whatever extent he shared the views of his disciples. ~Paul Gottfried