Because of their service in government, Gershman and other SDUSA members were called State Department socialists by , who wrote that the foreign policy of the Reagan administration was being run by Trotskyists, a claim that was called a myth by . This so-called Trotskyist charge has been repeated and even widened by journalist Michael Lind in 2003 to assert a takeover of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration by former Trotskyists. However, Lind's "amalgamation of the defense intellectuals with the traditions and theories of 'the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement' Lind's words" was criticized in 2003 by University of Michigan professor Alan M. Wald, who had written a history of the so-called New York intellectuals that discussed Trotskyism and neoconservatism. The SDUSA and allegations that former Trotskyists subverted the foreign policy of George W. Bush have been mentioned by self-styled paleoconservatives (traditional conservative opponents of neoconservatism).