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Occasionally the left does get stuck on defeating some right-wing figure, settling for mediocre or even poorly suited candidates (cough Biden cough). Though more often I read/hear more about changes toward progressive goals than fear mongering.
Taking things nice and steady, respecting Chesterton's Fence and making sure things aren't changing for change's sake is a long-term view.
>[the left] have a long-term view how society can be improved along many dimensions.
Except most such "improvements" are changes for change's sake without sufficient thought given to them. Such changes generally to satisfy someone's desire for morals (FSVO moral) is a short-sighted view.
Chesterton's Fence is about ensuring you understand the reason a specific choice was made in the past before undoing it. The modern right has no interest in understanding that choice and then making carefully considered improvements. The modern right yearns for a fictional past, one that if it ever existed benefited only the most elite members of society.
In the past in my home country of Canada the Tory party roughly represented this idealized view of conservatism. I believe the UK Tories have been like this during parts of their history, but I'm much less familiar with their history. Here in Canada the red tories merged with social conservatives in the early 2000s. It was a hostile takeover, with all the party members who embraced rational, considered progress pushed out by the modern right, who have increasingly embraced conspiracy theories and populist positions.
Climate change has been decisively shown to be the result of human-caused emissions. Chesterton's Fence has been satisfied; clearly emitting greenhouses gases cannot continue, yet the right is, if anything, gaining hostility to efforts to reduce emissions. A last-gasp red tory style leader was recently pushed out of Canada's conservative party for, among other things, daring to acknowledge climate change required action in the official party platform.
Many social policies were demonstrably enacted to limit opportunities for people of colour, like red-lining in the US. There are perfectly reasonable debates to be had about the best way to correct this historic injustice, but many on the modern right deny these policies had any detrimental impact, or if they did, the effects are no longer being felt.
I can respect leaders who want to carefully consider change before enacting it, but once the science is in, denying the problem exists is not leadership, nor is it respecting Chesterton's Fence. That's just painting your own reality.
Isn't it? The wrongs can end up portrayed as devilishly apocalyptic. American capitalism is consuming everything and might cause the extinction of life on the planet. The American state is intrinsically racist, founded on extractive unequal principles, to benefit the elites. The police serve solely as the protective arm of capital. The failure to appropriately censor incitement to hatred against LGBTQ people is literally genocide against gender-varying people.
I don't think the above is downright caricature? That is, one could find an American making those sort of statements pretty easily. (I've seen such things here in the HN comments.) I personally believe a weaker version of most of those claims. But I don't ramp it up to 11 like some people, who seem to need an incarnated, unambiguous evil to fight against.