Straussian political philosophy andpartisan politics in contemporary America.

Some of the most controversial advisers to the Bush administration are second generation students of Leo Strauss. The paper traces a path from Strauss’s writings on classical and modern political philosophy into contemporary partisan policy and politics via the reinterpretation of the founding of the American regime by the first generation of Strauss’s students(Berns, Diamond, Jaffa, Bloom et al.). The Straussians insist that America is the first modern republic, founded on the Lockean natural rights philosophy, and are dismissive of alternative interpretations, whether scholarly (Progressives, Bailyn, Pocock) or political (Kirk, Kendall and other conservatives). Yet their critique of contemporary American politics arises from their admiration for classical political philosophy. The paper examines how their classically-derived ideas on the nature of the regime, political leadership, the role of government, and the meaning of equality mesh with the two great partisan traditions in American politics, and in particular the role Straussian ideas played in the revival of the minority Republican Party from the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]