that has some different policy perspectives. The leadership of the Conservative movement (so maybe not many voters) see the world in fundamentally different ways than liberals and progressives.
Conservative leaders fundamentally believe that US society should be hierarchical in structure with a more rigid class structure, no matter how much they lie about "individual freedoms" and other stuff they spout. They don't care about the size of government, about fiscal responsibility, about "family values", etc... They care about having and using the power of government to impose social and economic control over a population they believe is inferior and needs to be ruled by force. Sure, they were much more "diplomatic" in how they expressed themselves in the past because if you just came out and said, "You people are stupid and need to be told how to live, and We are going to do that by force if necessary" they would have been completely destroyed as a political entity. Remember that neither the Fascists in Italy nor the Nazis in Germany, nor Pol Pot in Cambodia came in and just started killing people. They rode in on a message of populism and transformation. They did some good things before their full and true agenda was revealed.
Conservatives tried to kill the New Deal before the ink was dry on its signing. They actually tried to take FDR out of office. Several Conservative Congress people actively worked with the German government to subvert our Democracy during WWII.
I don't think it is naivete. I think that it is a history that VERY FEW Americans actually know about. I certainly did not know about it in high school and I took Honors and AP courses in History and Government in the 1990's. We have been convinced that both of our traditional American political parties are working toward a more perfect Union and that we only differ in how we want to get there.
Our side (Democrats / Liberals / Progressives) is actually at least trying to make a more inclusive society with the ideals put in the Constitution as a guide. We are by no means perfect, but we are trying. Republicans / Conservatives have a completely different idea on who even qualifies as an American and what our society should be about.
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