I appreciate this analysis about the danger of vulgar and ahistorical appropriation of classical figures by the alt right street. At the same time, it is also important to point out that many of the leading lights of neconservatism over the past half century studied under classicist Leo Strauss and his students at the University of Chicago, and the brain trust of Trumpism (if you want to call it that) is presently found at the University of Chicago West, also known as Claremont McKenna. So it’s important to note that this conflict of interpretations cleaves through the community of classicists also. All of which brings me to the outlier case of Karl Popper (exiled to Claremont back in the day because of his spirited defense of the spirit of Athenian democracy and the Open Society). Popper’s historical sociology claims that there is a perennial conflict in Western society between open and closed society attitudes, between cosmopolitans and reactionaries. It was certainly much easier to dismiss Popper as old fashioned a few years ago than it is today. Before we do so, however, its worth noting that as recently as last year, David Brooks concluded a NYT Op Ed (May 26, 2017, The Four American Narratives) by pointing to two competing models about the place of America in the 21st century, what he called the “mercantilist model” and the “talented community model.” He concludes the op ed saying, “the mercantilist model sees America as a new Rome, a mighty fortress in a dangerous world. The talented community sees America as a new Athens, a creative crossroads leading an open and fundamentally harmonious world. It’s an Exodus story for an information age.” If these things are indeed this alive for us today, maybe we just need to be doing a lot more to remind people about the golden age of Greek democracy.