Why is the US so conservative?

[Username MechaRFK]

The South, Midwest, and mountain states are the  conservative parts of the union and have the most influence over our political system. Even with more people living on the coasts and cities such as New York City, there not much influence coming out of there. Most people in the South ridicule New York natives for hating religion, baby killing, gay loving, elitist liberals. The same thing happens in the Northeast with stereotyping southern as gun totting, NASCAR/football loving, religious rednecks. The double standard goes to both sides of the issues. In the future, I see conservatives to start becoming more as libertarians with social conservativeism to be dead as winnable political issues. The libs will become more social democracy and will move forward from there agenda on.

[Username MechaRFK]

It's a country founded on what you may call conservative ideas. I'm guessing that's really much of the explanation.

I also think it has something to do with how US society was created and even more with how Americans have idealized that process.

This, basically.

What really befuddles me isn't so much the fiscal conservatism of the US, it's the saliency of social/cultural matters and the continuous struggle over them.

Here in Greece, arguably the most socially conservative of European western democracies, abortion was legalized thirty years ago with little fuss, after being accepted practice for much longer, and nobody has ever talked about it again.
Gay people were never targeted for ridicule and condemnation by our (powerful) Orthodox church and its conservative political allies.
And while anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise due to our economic hardships, there is nowhere near the venom and hate of people like Tom Tancredo and Steve King.   

Same, but for much different reasons. Unlike Europeans, I think the problem is not that America is too right-wing, but that Europe is too left-wing.

We don't have true left-wing party that is huge. The Dems are center-right-left and not left wing.

[Username MechaRFK]

It's a country founded on what you may call conservative ideas. I'm guessing that's really much of the explanation.

I also think it has something to do with how US society was created and even more with how Americans have idealized that process.

But the US were far less conservative until the 1980s (or even the 1990s). While that's true to some extent for most of developed countries, in USA this shift has taken epic proportions.

The 1990's were pretty conservative if you think about it.