He (and a lot of other people of the era, arguably even Strauss himself) are pretty impossible to map honestly and coherently into the current moment in a way that lines up with either MAGA or the current Dem-Left coalition ideologically. Someone like maybe Kristol or maybe Luttig comes closest?

Except there is no eternal order.

reading crisis of the house divided right now and nodding in agreement more often than not

it's very funny how Jaffa is probably basically a tankie for Lincoln + Reconstruction but doesn't seem able to recognize the CRA/CRM as the second reconstruction

comes down to not seeing black americans as citizens with the full capabilities of their white counterparts

(capable of the same acts of creation and creativity as a lincoln or a jefferson)

yup. he has this extremely odd read (that seems to be the only thing Claremont guys have actually understood from the man) that the CRA of 1965 was much like the Slave Power demanding group rights in the style of like, Calhoun. it's very baffling

mid-century conservatives understand black americans as operating in the broad tradition of american liberalism and natural right philosophy (impossible difficulty)

demanding every Claremont guy read Vincent Lloyd's BLACK NATURAL LAW

see also bsky.app/profile/shar...

van den Haag was a communist-turned-conservative segregationist who also got really into scientific positivism and wrote for the national review

its good to know that this specific kind of leftist has always existed (they form a pretty sizable part of Sternhell's theory of fascism, IIRC, though not Landa's)

Hello. From which book is the excerpt taken?

Ellmers "The Soul of Politics" which is a great book on Strauss + Jaffa himself and a horrid one on modern conservatism

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