I'm not so sure that Marx ... or at least Marxist/Marxian theory … isn’t contemporary in the sense we’re talking about here — you only have to look at the recently coined neologism cultural Marxism to see that they have relevancy still.

They are, in fact, a fundamental part of the post WWII foundational myth of America the shining light on the hill, bastion of democracy and defender of freedom … the bogeyman of the Right that informs its shibboleths … and as current as they ever were — it’s just that they are so foundational that they are to US culture what water is to fish.