"I think the term right-wing doesn't properly apply to American conservatism"
I chafe when conservatives are lumped together with Hitler/ Mussolini.
Mussolini championed Fascism, to which Hitler added German nationalism. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives — the people we now call Liberals — were quite enamored of the Fascists, considered them to be the embodiment of scientific Progressivism and worthy of emulation.
A good accounting of this can be found In Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.