Why is the US so conservative?

[All Along The Watchtower]

The two-party, winner-take all partisan political system is a big part of why America is "more conservative" than other countries.

Another big part is the religious element, but that's a whole 'nother question in itself. Tied to this is the sheer physical and numerical size of the US, the disproportionate influence of the South (which was an agrarian slave society that lagged in economic development, and still does in many ways), the role of slavery, racism, and immigrant tensions in politics, the diversity in America that belies the fact that there is an established hierarchy in America in terms of power and economics...


All of these are factors.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So I've been reflecting more on this question, and my answer  now is:

Large sections of America were agrarian for a long time. Additionally, America's largest single region was an ultra-hierarchical, authoritarian slave society for a very long time. So social/cultural conservatism is rooted in that. Agrarian societies tend to be very slow-paced, and  not accustomed to change.

As for the industrialized parts of America-those are and always have been where the wealth and intellectual power of the nation is concentrated, which, in a capitalist society,  translates to real power. Thus, America has always been a nation that has embraced government when it helps  the interests of business, and attacked government when the interests of business are being replaced by the interests of people in general. Egalitarianism is not in America's makeup., because the combination of agrarian respect for authority, the legacy of slavery and pervasive racism in the whole country, and the metropolitan areas' capital and resource advantages over the rural parts of the nation have lead to a profoundly contradictory political situation.

On the one hand, agrarian, rural, and working-class interests are deeply resentful and suspicious of the urban elites who control government, business, institutions in general, media, popular culture-the list goes on. But on the other hand, egalitarian, left-wing, and liberal ideas are toxic to many rural people, since they are propagated by or associated in large part with members of  the urban intelligentsia, the academic, the professional, the arrogant, the condescending elite. That, plus white anxiety over poor people of color on the one hand, and resentment at the "liberal elites" in the cities on the other, leads to not just a conservative, but a reactionary right-wing political consciousness.

So you have liberal Democrats, who are an interesting combination of well-educated, upper-class people and working-class to poor people, many of whom owe much to government due to living in metropolitan areas where ordinary people have more contact with the government, whether it be in the form of welfare, contracts, direct employment, great public schools, etc.

And then you have conservative Republicans, who are largely rural or have rural heritage these days (exurbs and some suburbs), where outsiders are suspected, where family, church, and local ties are more important, and where people resent government intrusion into their lives, even when it helps them (note: social religious-right conservatism should be understood as local religious intrusion, not government intrusion). Generally in such areas, it is the local businessmen and other people of authority-local and state politicians and officials-who interact with the federal government, and they understandably resent being told what to do by Washington, especially when Washington doesn't listen to local concerns (all politics is local, remember that!) Thus, it is those local leaders who have understandable reason to dislike federal intrusion who are  respected and admired in the conservative, agrarian-minded areas, whose opinions carry much more weight in the small towns and farm  communities than the academic musings of a professor or researcher in a metropolis.

So you really have a combination of things: provincial, authority-minded rural agrarian people, or who identify with that heritage, who are conservative and Republican; urban, well-educated people, as well as urban poor and working-class people, who directly see their tax dollars working for their benefit, and who are more oriented towards a sense of social justice, whether out of self-interest or for altruistic reasons, who vote Democratic: and the wealth being concentrated in the urban areas, the rural areas resenting that, as well as general white anxiety over issues of race and class.

The reason that America is so conservative in practice is because of these things, plus the profoundly pro-status quo political superstructure of the county, which makes real, meaningful change and cooperation (rather than partisan,emotionally-charged politics) all that more difficult.