https://x.com/toxictiramisu/status/2027348612091388044

“Peter Thiel's The Straussian Moment argues society must be ruled by an elite with secret knowledge, while the masses live under noble lies. From Leo Strauss, he warns transparency destabilizes society & that constant threats are needed to prevent decay, justifying elite control.”

Depends what you mean by “Straussian,” because that word gets abused like a committee-written mission statement.

Straussian (strict sense): writing with an exoteric “official” meaning and an esoteric meaning aimed at insiders, often because saying the real thing openly is dangerous. That’s basically the thesis in Strauss’s Persecution and the Art of Writing. (JSTOR)

Is constitutional law “Straussian”?

Not usually in the persecution-coded-message sense. But yes in the “two-audience, two-function” sense, because constitutional law is simultaneously:

1. Public theology (legitimation): arguments are written to sound like principle, continuity, neutrality.
2. Power management: the same doctrines often function as tools that allocate authority, block opponents, or preserve coalitions.

That “two-level” vibe is why constitutional law can feel like: “Here is the noble reason, and here is what this accomplishes.” Legal realism has been yelling about this for over a century, and Holmes’s “bad man” framing is the classic blunt version: treat law as prediction of what courts will do, not as moral philosophy. (moglen.law.columbia.edu)

Also, constitutional doctrine is dense and technical, so it has a natural “initiates vs normals” split. That’s less secret-code and more “this is what happens when a system accretes case law for 200+ years and refuses to die.”

“Law between two competing political factions”

When factions are in a real arms race, law becomes a language for power moves and a constraint system at the same time.

Two useful concepts from constitutional scholarship:

• Constitutional hardball: actions that stay within the formal bounds of constitutional doctrine but violate (or stress) the norms that make the system cooperative. That’s basically the definition Tushnet gives. (Georgetown Law Scholarship)

  This is where you get the most “Straussian” feel: public-facing “we’re just following the rules,” plus a not-very-hidden strategic intent.

• Constitutional rot: slow decay of the norms and structures that keep the republic functioning, making politics more nakedly about power over time. Balkin’s framing is explicitly about how systems degrade without necessarily having a single “constitutional crisis” moment. (DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law)

And if you want the cold political-science version: public law is also a terrain for political entrenchment, where factions design and use legal structures to lock in advantage. (Yale Law Journal)

The clean takeaway