> What does conservative mean?
This is a fair question at this point. I would posit answering this and also answering "What does liberal mean?" would be great things to address in high school political science classrooms, however it doesn't seem to be in the curriculum. We've had the better part of 30 years where media pundits have been doing their best to conflate these terms with concepts which are tangential at best or completely unrelated at worst.
First, I think it's important to understand that concepts like "conservative" and "liberal" refer to overarching political philosophies, and the actual ideology a person holds that describes themselves as such is probably a subset. Since we're focused on conservatism, I'll provide examples from there. So, in this case there may be broad differences in beliefs about particular political issues between an evangelical conservative Republican and a Libertarian, however both are conservatives. This type of difference arises with the concept of liberalism as well. Fundamentally, the liberal/conservative distinction is a line, and therefore each person falls at some point on that line within a broad spectrum.
Second, let's address the most simplistic explanation of the overarching philosophy, and then we'll get into some specifics of how this might manifest when applied to an individual. Conservatism is effectively a combination of three ideas:
1. Individuals know best about their own situations and working together can improve things better than a central authority (i.e. "government sucks at doing things"
2. Broad social and political change should be infrequent and considered fully, and therefore an adhesion to our founding charter (Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution) is critical to correct governance (i.e. "we've done it this way and it's worked out so far, why change?")
3. In order to ensure that both of the above are true it's essential to have a small central government which is only empowered and funded minimally at the bare necessity to achieve those general aims (i.e. "the best government is a small government")
Third, it's important to understand how much upbringing and experiences in life affect an individual's political ideology and the philosophy from which it is derived. It is no mistake or surprise that cities tend to be more liberal and rural locations tend to be more conservative in the United States. It's a result of somewhat unintended consequences of democracy conceptually and the realities of optimizing for bureaucratic efficiency. We know that basic rules of optimization (the Pareto principle) says that 80% of the job requires 20% of the work. This is true of many things when it comes to urban/rural divides, all the way down to broadband Internet connectivity. Democracy in its simplest form becomes rule by the majority, so larger concentrations of people (cities) hold more sway.
These two items result in people inhabiting rural areas being felt that not only do they not have a voice but that nobody cares to help them with their problems. The response to this is "clinging to traditions" because those traditions are by and large what has helped get them and their families through hard times for many years. In a fit of irony, the more underfunded the government the more heavily the government focuses on cities as that becomes the most rational pathway.
Finally, conservatism is rooted in two additional beliefs that are about the conduct of a person individually. That is, that generally everyone should be treated as an individual rather than via group identity (individualism as a loose philosophical base) and that because of this personal responsibility and hard work are the most important factors in success. This is one reason why people with conservative beliefs are less likely to approve of social safety nets, even though they would likely qualify as beneficiaries. The philosophy includes a belief structure of the self that would refuse the help out of shame at personal failure, and at the same time would judge others as failing for taking that help. In this mindset all that matters is taking responsibility for your self, including the outcome/reaction to a bad situation, and working hard to better things.
I've touched briefly on a lot of different things, and I've provided basically no sources for these statements. I'd like to write something much more thorough, but the reality is it'd be entirely too lengthy and I should be doing work right now. The topic is very complex, political ideologies themselves are complex, and this is one reason why I find it distasteful when someone is painted in broad strokes because of their political ideology (regardless of what that ideology is). Hopefully this comment is helpful to the discussion though.