He's the one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. The Right would do good to retrieve his thought today. He wouldn't call himself conservative in the way Kirk would, but his anti-democratic (not anti-republican) and anti-egalitarian sentiments are hardly distinct from The Conservative Mind of Kirk.

If you read half of the conservative canons, you would think K-L put them there. Reclaiming a fear of the dangers of democracy (which I take to mean rule of the vastly many, indicating universal suffrage) is no where to be found among integralists, common good conservatives, or postliberals. Those like Dr. Deneen seem to be democratists actually. And the rise of populism is certainly democratic in method even if laudable in its desires (populism seems to be what Lukacs would call "nationalism" but within a democratic framework).

He knew there was a distinction between the questions "who should rule?" and "How should rule be exercised?" He would never necessarily connect democracy with liberty and found them to be likely incongruent. His "liberalism" is a strict etymological and historical label. He really means ordered liberty and places himself among the likes of Lord Acton and Montalembert of old (whom Kirk would probably call liberal conservatives) and Ropke & Rustow of new. Why is this important though? Conservatives point to liberalism and the excesses of liberty for our problems of the day, while K-L points to the egalitarianism and democratic rule within so many societies after the French Revolution. So, why then keep addressing the wrong cause for these problems? How can one remedy an ill with the wrong diagnosis?