What is a conservative? Understanding how the term works in American politics

By John Patrick Leahy for Economic Hardship Reporting Project

This column is supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

The evergreen questions raised by the label “conservative” are: conserving what and from whom?

Let’s dispense with one popular answer to this question, asserted by many American conservatives and liberals alike: that proper conservatives are devoted to “small government” or engaged in protecting “individual liberties” from a big government. These are slogans of today’s Republican Party, but there’s no good argument to believe that the party behind the War on Drugs (Richard Nixon, and later Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and every Republican since), the PATRIOT Act (George W. Bush), the first and second Iraq War (both Bushes), massive police funding, eliminating the right to abortion, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, and school book bans is, in any way that makes sense, devoted to “limiting” the power of the government. To make sense of the word “conservative,” we have to dig deeper than headlines and slogans.