Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[Gary Childress]

Well, that's no different at all from conservatives. Conservatism holds that you have freedom, but your freedom to do as you please ends at the tip of your neighbour's nose. So it recognizes that sort of "limit".

What else?

OK. So I'm also conservative in the sense that I grew up in a liberal democracy and I would like to conserve that liberal democracy.

Yep, that's conservative. It's certainly not what the Socialists are campaigning to get to happen: they want a one-party totalitarian state.

I don't know of anyone who wants a "one-party totalitarian state". Most people I know seem to complain that the US is too rigid with a two-party system (let alone one party) and would like more diversity of choice in candidates.

[Gary Childress]

Though, Trump did mention something about being a "dictator for a day" so I don't know. Maybe Trump supporters want a totalitarian state?

[Immanuel Can]

OK. So I'm also conservative in the sense that I grew up in a liberal democracy and I would like to conserve that liberal democracy.

Yep, that's conservative. It's certainly not what the Socialists are campaigning to get to happen: they want a one-party totalitarian state.

I don't know of anyone who wants a "one-party totalitarian state". Most people I know seem to complain that the US is too rigid with a two-party system (let alone one party) and would like more diversity of choice in candidates.

Beware of what you wish for.

With a three party or more system, parties can form coalition governments, where the party that gets the most votes can be kept out by two smaller parties. Then the smallest party holds the balance of power, and rule is in the hands of the party the LEAST voted for. Look at Canada, if you want to see that play out.

As for who wants the totalitarian state, Socialists do. Has it not occurred to you that Socialism cannot endure there being even one rival party?

[Immanuel Can]

Though, Trump did mention something about being a "dictator for a day" so I don't know. Maybe Trump supporters want a totalitarian state?

I actually saw that speech. Trump was making a joke, after being asked if he would be a "dictator." He was brushing the dumb question off.

It's an interesting Leftist trick that they're very keen on nowadays...take on line from a joke somebody made, treat it with deadly seriousness, and pretend it was some sort of revelation of secret motive. They do it all the time.

I'm just surprised anybody's so naive as to fall for it. A child could see through it. But maybe the truth is that they don't WANT to see through it. Instead, they want to use that tactic to sell to the even-more-naive that there is some deadly danger to be feared.

I'm not a Trumpist, obviously, since I never have nor will I ever be voting for the man. But such dishonest gestures make me rather disgusted with the media, and vaguely insulted that they would even imagine I'd be fooled.

[Gary Childress]

Yep, that's conservative. It's certainly not what the Socialists are campaigning to get to happen: they want a one-party totalitarian state.

I don't know of anyone who wants a "one-party totalitarian state". Most people I know seem to complain that the US is too rigid with a two-party system (let alone one party) and would like more diversity of choice in candidates.

Beware of what you wish for.

With a three party or more system, parties can form coalition governments, where the party that gets the most votes can be kept out by two smaller parties. Then the smallest party holds the balance of power, and rule is in the hands of the party the LEAST voted for. Look at Canada, if you want to see that play out.

As for who wants the totalitarian state, Socialists do. Has it not occurred to you that Socialism cannot endure there being even one rival party?

I see. Maybe that's why the Green party and others want "Rank choice voting". I believe that way people can rate the candidates on how much they would like to see each of them win. Otherwise, we've mostly been in a system of voting for the lesser evil. Other candidates are being weeded out by the interests of those in power.

[Gary Childress]

Though, Trump did mention something about being a "dictator for a day" so I don't know. Maybe Trump supporters want a totalitarian state?

I actually saw that speech. Trump was making a joke, after being asked if he would be a "dictator." He was brushing the dumb question off.

It's an interesting Leftist trick that they're very keen on nowadays...take on line from a joke somebody made, treat it with deadly seriousness, and pretend it was some sort of revelation of secret motive. They do it all the time.

I'm just surprised anybody's so naive as to fall for it. A child could see through it. But maybe the truth is that they don't WANT to see through it. Instead, they want to use that tactic to sell to the even-more-naive that there is some deadly danger to be feared.

I'm not a Trumpist, obviously, since I never have nor will I ever be voting for the man. But such dishonest gestures make me rather disgusted with the media, and vaguely insulted that they would even imagine I'd be fooled.

I just saw an article on it. It's difficult to keep track of all the news. Good to know. Though I also saw where Trump apparently suggesting nuking N. Korea and Russia and blaming another country on it. This happened while he was in office but I suppose his cabinet quashed the sentiment in him. I don't think Trump is a particularly righteous or tactful person. His only claim to uniqueness is that of being super rich. Other than that, he's no better (probably even less so) than a lot of people out there who've never been rich but still conducted their lives nobly.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know of anyone who wants a "one-party totalitarian state". Most people I know seem to complain that the US is too rigid with a two-party system (let alone one party) and would like more diversity of choice in candidates.

Beware of what you wish for.

With a three party or more system, parties can form coalition governments, where the party that gets the most votes can be kept out by two smaller parties. Then the smallest party holds the balance of power, and rule is in the hands of the party the LEAST voted for. Look at Canada, if you want to see that play out.

As for who wants the totalitarian state, Socialists do. Has it not occurred to you that Socialism cannot endure there being even one rival party?

Otherwise, we've mostly been in a system of voting for the lesser evil. Other candidates are being weeded out by the interests of those in power.

Yes, I think that's happening.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't think Trump is a particularly righteous or tactful person.

I don't suppose he is. But Biden entered office senile, and has gotten immeasurably worse since. And now, that's your choice for the upcoming election, it seems.

Something is terribly wrong in America. We all know it. The Bushes, Clinton, Obama...they were no better, and in some ways worse. How can the most powerful country in the world suffer these sorts of characters to lead them? It seems unthinkable. Yet, just when the bar seems to have gotten low, it's put even lower. Biden is a zombie, right now. We can all see it.

Apparently, a person doesn't need to be functional to be president of the US, and most-powerful-man-in-the-world.

[Gary Childress]

I don't think Trump is a particularly righteous or tactful person.

I don't suppose he is. But Biden entered office senile, and has gotten immeasurably worse since. And now, that's your choice for the upcoming election, it seems.

Something is terribly wrong in America. We all know it. The Bushes, Clinton, Obama...they were no better, and in some ways worse. How can the most powerful country in the world suffer these sorts of characters to lead them? It seems unthinkable. Yet, just when the bar seems to have gotten low, it's put even lower. Biden is a zombie, right now. We can all see it.

Apparently, a person doesn't need to be functional to be president of the US, and most-powerful-man-in-the-world.

Well, like most, Biden has advisors and others managing things. He has issues with memory and such but so far his administration seems to be doing a decent job with a delicate balancing act of trying to do what is best. The Republicans basically wanted 0 illegal immigration which was unrealistic and canned a deal because Mayorkas who is in charge of "homeland security" refused to lie under oath and promise he could do something unrealistic. Running a state isn't as easy as 123, let's build a wall. There are humanitarian concerns and the Biden administration is probably a little more humanitarian than the Republicans are. The main thing I don't like about Biden's administration right now is that they aren't doing more to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. Instead they seem to have exacerbated things in many ways.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't think Trump is a particularly righteous or tactful person.

I don't suppose he is. But Biden entered office senile, and has gotten immeasurably worse since. And now, that's your choice for the upcoming election, it seems.

Something is terribly wrong in America. We all know it. The Bushes, Clinton, Obama...they were no better, and in some ways worse. How can the most powerful country in the world suffer these sorts of characters to lead them? It seems unthinkable. Yet, just when the bar seems to have gotten low, it's put even lower. Biden is a zombie, right now. We can all see it.

Apparently, a person doesn't need to be functional to be president of the US, and most-powerful-man-in-the-world.

Well, like most, Biden has advisors and others managing things.

He'd have to. He's brain-dead. But that's ominous, too...who is pulling his strings? One thing we can know for sure is that it isn't anybody people voted into the presidency.

The Republicans basically wanted 0 illegal immigration

Are you nuts? What level of "illegal" immigration would you accept? What have you got against legal immigration? That seems absurd.

Running a state isn't as easy as 123, let's build a wall.

Actually, it's pretty much that easy, if it's a good wall.

There are humanitarian concerns and the Biden administration is probably a little more humanitarian than the Republicans are.

If by "humanitarian," you mean "turning a blind eye to drugs, human traffickers, rape, homelessness, poverty...then yeah, they're clearly that more "humanitarian." But if you mean "against those things," then, no.

I'm not saying it's possible to do these things perfectly; but it's clearly possible to do them much, much, much better than the Biden administration is doing them. They're not even really trying, it seems.

The main thing I don't like about Biden's administration right now is that they aren't doing more to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

Well, we're agreed on that, for sure. And the Afghanistan thing was just humiliating for the Americans...an utter shambles. And we also have conclusive evidence, their own words, that they knew they were going to provoke a war with Putin at least 12 years ago...and Farage told them not to do it a decade ago. But they went ahead and did it anyway...and it's Ukrainians and Russians who are now dying for it, and the American people who are being robbed by it.

But the war in Ukraine is something I think half of Republicans also want -- the Washington career crowd on both sides -- because it's their tax-grab laundering factory. They'll keep it going, unless somebody shuts it down on them. And who's got the nerve to do that?

Maybe Trump. Maybe somebody else. And while he's not my first choice for prez, I'd love to see somebody do it. Just imagine how they'd squeal. In any case, somebody's got to stop that war. It's doing nobody but the rich elites in Washington any good.

[Skepdick]

I can choose between having one, two, three, four, five, or six chickens for dinner. Isn't this freedom?

Is it? Let me see you eat them all in under 30 seconds.

[promethean75]

"↑I can choose between having one, two, three, four, five, or six chickens for dinner. Isn't this freedom?"

It is a kind of freedom, yes, but not metaphysical or ontological freedom. You're free to choose between 2,3,4,5 or 6 chickens, but that doesn't mean your choice was free, was causally independent of your brain and body such that they didn't make you choose 2 instead of 3.

We fallaciously treat the logical fact that a reality is conceivable where one could choose 5 instead of 3 and 2 chickens as if could be a physical fact. but only one determined reality may be possible... the one in which u choose 3 chickens instead of 1. So while it's logically possible that any of those numbers be chosen, it's onlt physically possible that one of those numbers be chosen.

But yeah, this is a common conceptual confusion shared by freewillists. They treat as evidence for freewilll something that wouldn't qualify it anyway.

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't think so, and I did say why. The Left has a particular, identifiable set of ideological derivations and theories. They've got their Marx, their Foucault, their Gramsci, their Freire, etc., all penning manifestos of what kind of Socialism they aim to create.

Conservatism, by contrast, is a sort of general impulse that binds widely disparate groups together, and has no central ideological commitments. They have no singular manifestos, and for anybody one might name as the progenitor of conservatism, one would find most of the field would disagree with that. Conservatism's just a kind of "mood" or "impulse" to preserve some legacy but it's a little thin on saying what the specific legacy is that should be "conserved." With regard to content, it's highly variable, actually.

That also explains why rounding up any single "conservative movement" is like trying to herd cats. They're not naturally inclined to stick together at all. But Socialism seems to be the glue that keeps the Left a monolythic ideological entity.

I'm sorry but here you are simply sbjecting the thing you like (the right) to a less difficult test than the thing you don't like (The Left).

For a very good reason: that both sides misunderstand each other when they imagine they're the same.

That's a very common human error, called "projection." It means when one takes one's own motives, and attributes them to somebody else, as if one is that person, even though that person has very different motives. The Left projects onto the right its own ideological conformity, its authoritarian intentions, its monolythic political-engineering ambitions, it's lust for power, and so on. The conservatives, on their side, tend to attribute to the Left a potential for individual thought (rather than conformity to an ideology), a willingness to be convinced by things like reason and logic (rather than the Left's stark rejection of both), a willingness to respond to arguments (rather than the belief that all arguments are inauthentic and power-aiming anyway), and so on.

The result of this is that they end up talking past each other and attributing inaccurate intentions to each other all the time. The very first thing that both sides would need to realize, in order to see the other clearly, is that they are not the same.

I'm afraid you skipped my actual point there. I just noted that the way you analyse use of the term you intend to use as a broad brush is incongruent with the way that you explain how to use the tool that you prefer others not to use as such. I view them as equally broad brushes and I find your complaint against that seems to have more motivation than reason. I maintain that if we are in a position to use "the left" as a catch all term for all left-leaning things than we should be in a position to use "the right" and "the centre" as similarly broad terms, and that we can live with with the inevitable outcome that we cannot take something so wide to also be very deep.

That said. I did not introduce all this left/right stuff anyway and I view it as a hijacking of the original intent. I am contrasting traditionalism of the conservative sort (with the antipathy to radical change) against a neo-traditionalism of a radical sort and this isn't really intended to be another boring thread about how evil The Left are. You have plenty of those, and they are all the same as each other.

Modest disclaimer: In the spirit of pragmatism (colloquial prgamtatism not a reference to James or Dewey) I will consent that in most countries the left are usually viewed as the more progressive movement than the right. This is a complex misnomer in my view and the Trade Unions and Labour end of the left are actually massive traditionalists, I imagine Connsul would agree to an extent. But I can't argue every front at once so I will allow a certain drift to the left/right dichotomy here, but I do so under mild protest becasue I find that the left wing in general are quite poor as progressives and that is because they are not.

I don't think they really do. "Manifest Destiny" is an ideological curiosity very peculiar to America, not to conservatives. The Protestant work ethic is actually a construct of Weber, which he premises on a minority religious position known as "Calvinism," and not even most Christians are Calvinists: secular conservatives are certainly not. And the idea of that the market has an "Invisible Hand" is a weird one from Adam Smith. A person could easily be a conservative while believing in none of these things at all. That's what I mean about "herding cats."

These handy little myths

They aren't myths. They're the real history of those ideas. And while I know that the Left thinks history is all fake (or "a tale told by the winners," as they so often say), it's not. In this case, I'm telling you exactly where those ideas originate. And if you know what "Manifest Destiny" or "the Protestant Work Ethic" or "the Invisible Hand of the Market" are, you already know I'm telling you the truth.

If you refer to the sentence I wrote, the sort of thing I was referring to before you cut it short are myths. We have a new example today of a similar foundational myth from Wizard22 here
"Now we can begin to understand how Catholicism originally began in the Roman Empire, when this exact same type of Hedonism, Decadence, Perversion, and Pedophilia became pandemic to the Romans. The populace, plebeian, proletariat needed a strong, powerful institution of Morality, to protect them from these Satanic and Evil forces. And from these Catholic institutions, a new class of 'Holy' and 'Purified' individuals arose who could not be smeared or slandered politically. Baptism, became a method of 'Sanctifying' the Ruling Class."

My actual poin,t against which I am happy to see counter argument is that these handy little myths that we tell ourselves to explain how the world we see around us got to be the way it is are a universal part of human psychology and everybody is prone to this form of narrative explanation. Certain types of radical such as Marxists may be prone to elevate them into pseudo-sciences but the seeds of that error lie in us all and we would all be well advised to bear than in mind.

Well, they're not keen on institutions, and tend to have less belief in the intrinsic goodness of government than the Left does, for sure. But I would argue this stems from them tending to have a more realistic and less naive view of basic human nature, and a stronger belief in personal liberties than in the possibilities of human social engineering.

I think you are using a more limited defintion of "institution" than I am here.

I am. I'm not talking about everything that can be "instituted," like a marriage, or something like "mental institutions"; I mean governmental-type "institutions."

As such, I do believe it is fair to say that "modern Conservatives would be expected to have the highest regard for institutions that check the power of the excutive and so on" in such terms.

Quite so. But then, you're using the term "institutions" in its most general sense, as in "something instituted," not in terms of governmental organizations, as I am.

Whatever. I wrote what I wrote using a perfectly common version of the word and what I wrote makes sense with that version. I thought it was worth looking at this supposed commitment that Conservatives have to checks and balances. But if we cannot get past some confusion about the word "institution" then that would be a pipe dream.

Of whom are you thinking?

Wizard22 considers himself a conservative, he doesn't meet any definition of conservatism I can see though. He's a Hitler apologising white-supremacist with a long list of grievances aimed at Jews. The traditions he wishes to bring back are a grab-bag of old racist and sexist tropes. He's a radical with a platform of faux-tradition to sell. His links to tradition are not about respect for the process but are actually just aimed at giving himself greater access to white women. This is far-right Neo-Traditionalism. Jacobi is the same really.

Out in the real world, I think there are many such people.

I don't find there are. I mean, I'm not doubting your word regarding Alexis or Wizard22, since I really don't know them, and maybe you do. But outside of them, I don't find many among conservatives. I do think you're right about this, though: that such would be only a radical fringe, whose views I would never share, nor would most conservatives. And I'd agree with you that any such have gone way too far with their views. But I don't at all think conservatives in general are akin to any such.

It would make a mockery of my OP if I were arguing that actual conservatives hold the views of neo-trad radicals such as Wizard and Jacobi.

But I would also say that in many places around the world, traditional conservatives are getting spanked by neo-traditional radicals. And I am wondering to what extent have these neo-trads borrowed the LEFTIST tradition of Entryism to surreptitiously dominate the conservative agenda.

There is an opposite of people like Wizard and Jacobi within the conservative movement, but I would say that the persons who represent that tradition are the likes of Mitt Romney in America, David Cameron in the UK, Angela Merkel in Germany and so on. But in the 2 party US system, the right wing party is being MAGAfied, in the UK the centre rigth is in collapse and seems to be approaching a hostile takeover from the right fringes...
... In Germany the centre right is being slowly eaten by the AFD, in Italy the same has already happened and their current PM is quite horrifying. Holland and most of the Nordics teeter on a similar brink.

And in most of those countries, the left, being never so committed to progressive causes as is carelessly supposed, are absorbing some of the problematic rhetoric about immigration, certain religions that must be suppressed and so on. This is unsurprising if we take into account that most ofthe left are just as inherently conservative as most of the right, but it is suggestive of the early stages of a breakdown similar to that which happened in the right since the emergence of the Tea Party.

Good. I'm gratified we're finding grounds for a pleasant, civil conversation on this particular issue. It's very nice.

Likewise

Well, let's continue in that vein, since it's mutually pleasant. Before responding, I shall endeavour to hear you with the most charitable reading I can muster; and you may, if you wish, continue in the same vein with me.

[FlashDangerpants]

I think you are overlooking some stuff there. Certainly it is for radicals (left/right, doesn't really matter) to try and bend history into a deterministic pattern, and apply the Procrustean forces that requires.But Conservatives aren't at some opposite end of the spectrum here, they just like their beer a little weaker.

Well, some conservatives like ideological "strong beer": Historically beginning with Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), there is a radical, counter-enlightenment strand of conservatism, which is illiberal and anti-democratic (anti-republican, anti-constitutional, anti-parliamentary), or pseudo-democratic (by formally maintaining elections and democratic institutions as a populist facade). This authoritarian conservatism may be called ultraconservatism. It isn't identical with fascist or national-socialist totalitarianism, but they overlap to some extent.

NGL, Maistre is largely unknown to me except for the treatment he got from Berlin in Crooked Timbers. I think that the history surrounding the formation of modern nation states, which he was ineluctably caught up in whether he liked it or not, required probably the greatest churn of foundational mythologising of all time. But I believe we are afloat in a soup of such things pretty much all the time, and as a society we are placed at risk of collectively making poor choices whenever there is a major event that provokes a lot of new mythologising.

I have an underlying concern that people might be getting better at rapidly disseminating such mythologies now, but that we are not getting better at noticing them.

[Consul]

They're not "meaningless" no. But all they mean is themselves or else someone who would have stood with either the king or else commoners during the French revolution. I don't think they're useful terms. If you want to say that someone is "extremely liberal" or "extremely conservative" or "extremely opposed to X, Y, or Z, then I suppose that's fair game. Otherwise to say someone is just "far right" or else "far left" is simply another word for "extreme." But "right" and "left" themselves do not denote anything.

Well, they do. Of course, if taken out of political context, they just stand for spatial directions; but here they stand for certain political directions.

"Left. The polar opposite of right. The term originated in the habit of the democratic and liberal side of the French assembly, and of other European legislatures in the nineteenth century, of sitting to the left of the president’s chair (a habit presaged in the French Estates General of 1789, in which the nobility sat on the King’s right, and the ‘third estate’ on his left).

Terms like ‘left’, ‘left of centre’, and ‘left wing’ now denote a variety of things, and most of all a certain flavour of politics. They are terms of journalese, without precise meaning, but used to suggest some combination of the following views (no one of which is necessary and each of which admits of degree):

(i) a hostility to private property, and belief in social ownership as the ideal alternative, with control by the state as a necessary means to that;
(ii) a hostility towards classes judged to be favoured by the political system;
(iii) a hostility towards establishment in all its forms, and towards offices, honours, and other symbolic expressions of the dignity of government;
(iv) desire for a classless society, without privilege, patronage or a hereditary principle;
(v) belief in democracy, or at least in popular participation in government; or government by consent;
(vi) belief in certain natural rights (or human rights), particularly those associated with the victims of existing social arrangements, be they workers, women, immigrants or whatever;
(vii) a belief in progress, to be furthered by revolution or reform;
(viii) egalitarian leanings, together with a desire for social justice;
(ix) anti-nationalist (although not necessarily internationalist) tendencies (although it should be noted that nationalists now constitute one of the largest classes on the left);
(x) belief in a welfare state, and in state control over education, medicine, and important resources.

Not all of (i) to (x) are compatible in practice, although it is possible to believe that they are. Many people on the left would describe themselves as socialists; the ‘revolutionary left’ is composed of those who wish to bring socialism into being by revolution, the rest being content with reform conducted through existing institutions.
Left-wing theory is the attempt to synthesize all or some of (i) to (x), eliminate inconsistencies, and provide an underlying justification in terms either of a theory of history or a theory of justice, or both.

Because there is a clear spectrum of opinion identified by the two poles of ‘left’ and ‘right’ it is now normal to refer, e.g., to the left wing of right-wing parties, and the right wing of left-wing parties. Very roughly those who shift to the left see themselves as moving in the direction of Rousseau’s ‘compassionating zeal’ for the underprivileged, and away from respect for existing institutions, in particular those that confer power, property, privilege and social distinction. Those who shift to the right tend to regard compassionating zeal as a mask for ressentiment."

(Scruton, Roger. The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. pp. 384-5)
——————
"Right, the. Defined by contrast to (or perhaps more accurately, conflict with) the left, the term ‘right’ does not even have the respectability of a history. As now used it denotes several connected and also conflicting ideas. To be ‘on the right’ is to believe (or for the political realist, to affect to believe) some bundle of the following:

(i) conservative and perhaps authoritarian doctrines concerning the nature of civil society, with emphasis on custom, tradition, nationality and allegiance as social bonds;
(ii) theories of political obligation framed in terms of obedience, legitimacy and piety rather than contract, consent and justice;
(iii) reluctance to countenance too great a divorce between law and morality – i.e. between the enactments of the state, and the sentiments of society, hence a resistance to liberalizing reforms in the law;
(iv) cultural conservatism;
(v) respect for the hereditary principle and prescriptive rights;
(vi) belief in private property, not as a natural right, but as an indispensable part of the condition of society;
(vii) belief in elementary freedoms, and in the irreplaceable value of the individual as against the collective;
(viii) belief in free enterprise, free markets and a capitalist economy, as the only mode of production compatible with human freedom, and suited to the temporary nature of human aspirations;
(ix) varying degrees of belief in human imperfectibility and original sin.

Other items might be added to the list, and the above is suggested only as a cross-section of current significances. It should already be clear that not everything attributed to the ‘right’ is compatible with everything else, a fault that may lie either with the right itself or with those who so describe it. Thus the emphasis on freedom and the market may not be compatible with the belief in tradition and obedience, free-market relations being the great solvent of social allegiance based on custom and authority, rather than on the ‘legal-rational’ principles that [Max] Weber attributes to the world structured by contract. Nor is the belief in human rights underlying (vii), with its individualistic emphasis, obviously compatible with respect for prescriptive right and the hereditary principle. These ideological conflicts are to some extent internal to the conservative position, which, if founded in ‘intimations’ of social order (as [Michael] Oakeshott suggests), is bound to suffer conflicts in an age of social flux. To some extent they stem from the fact that the right is defined by opposition to the left, which, while it discerns contradictions in history, is adamant that it contains none within itself. Since the left sometimes opposes economic liberalism, sometimes individualism, and sometimes social conservatism, the term ‘right’ is applied indifferently to all of those outlooks, and also to fascism, despite its leftist origins, on the grounds that the great conflict of the twentieth century, which erupted in the Second World War, involved an alliance of progressive forces against fascism."

(Scruton, Roger. The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. p. 601)