I also don’t think that the influence of rabbi yoshe ber, or rabbi kook is on the rise. I think that the frummer elements of the MO and dati leumi world might be emphasizing them as opposed to the more modern rabbis, because they are shifting to the right, while left wing MO is shifting much more to the left, to the level of conservativism in the 50s.
In the yeshivos, you will never hear rabbi yoshe ber quoted, while 30 years ago you did – people in the yeshiva world were interested in what he had to say…now, he has faded into the limelight. Rabbi kook as well.
Another reason for this departure (and a way of seeing the falsity kf their opinions) is that both of them had visions of the future that have failed to materialize at all. Rabbi yoshe ber saw the future of the torah world in YU, and he said that if we remain yeshivish, we will die out. Rabbi kook said that the leaders of the state of Israel would all do teshuva and make a state that’s run by halacha. Neither of those things happened; in fact, the precise opposite occured. YU’s model for community and educatio, instead of becoming the dominant stream, has been reduced to being the kiruv cases for the mainstream orthodox. Their involvement in the secular culture has eroded them into being almost indistinguishable from their non jewish counterparts in thought and appearance, and often in deed as well. Rabbi yoshe ber would have recoiled in horror at the thought of LGBT rights, polyamory discussed by high school debate team groups, or even the movies consumed and imbibed by the MO masses.