Yes, it describes everyone who aims to use unrestrained political power to reshape society, i.e. the precise opposite of what "conservatism" actually means.
Perhaps conservatism doesn't necessarily fit into a left-right spectrum neatly. I recently saw fascism described as a version of collectivism that caters to the right.
> I recently saw fascism described as a version of collectivism that caters to the right.
Yes, I think that's its definition.
> Perhaps conservatism doesn't necessarily fit into a left-right spectrum neatly.
While conservatism is right, right isn't necessarily conservatism. Conservatism more describes a center-right party, the extreme right often is what is called fascism, with one alternative being fundamentalism. I think conservatism and fascism are pretty much mutual exclusive.
Nothing in Russel Kirk's concept of conservatism implies any of the specific policy positions you're attributing to conservatism per se.
Someone whose political agenda is to force society to confirm to a doctrinal ideology that in opposition to the established broad status-quo norms of that society is by definition not a conservative.
> Someone whose political agenda is to force society to confirm to a doctrinal ideology that in opposition to the established broad status-quo norms of that society is by definition not a conservative.
Conservatives believe that the status quo may violate the transcendent order and that they are duty bound to restore it. Neither conservatives nor liberals believe the status quo is sacred.
Do you think the rolling back of Roe vs. Wade was not a conservative act because it was a "status quo norm" ? They never liked it, so perhaps it was not a norm?
They are conserving what they think the world has been all along. When you define conservatism as being a status quo a single "leftish" government, makes every conservatist not a non-conservatist and the parties in power conservative. That makes it a useless distinction as it then means the people currently shaping the laws.