Few institutions exist that don’t show the markings of the long ascendancy of right wing extremism. I doubt if the architects of this noxious political bloc/coalition were familiar with Raymond Williams, Antonio Gramsci, and others of similar mind on the left, but their “long march” through the institutional life of the country to the apex of political power — war of position to a war of movement — would almost make you think that they did.
What makes it worse is that much of the left during this time was trapped in the disabling intellectual grip of the notion that the two parties were essentially the same … tweedledee, tweedledum. Thankfully, in recent years this has begun to change, albeit unevenly and inconsistently.
