I’ve long since abandoned the term/label “conservative” since not only do people not really know what it signifies, it actually infers “keeping (’conserving’) the status quo” - exactly what we DON’T need.
PATRIOT says it for me.
Conservatives love the things they want to keep - whatever they are.
Patriots love America and want to RESTORE her Free Constitutional Republic, which means HUGE change.
1. You mean implies, not infers.
2. No, it does not, in the political context, mean to preserve the status quo. You are regurgitating what leftist academics (including dictionary editors) and propagandists (especially journalists) assert conservative means - ever seeking to control the terms of the debate - not what actual thoughtful conservatives say it means.
3. I have disputed that very notion since I was a teenager! I do not seek to preserve the status quo; I seek to conserve whatever is of value, and to discard whatever is not. That, by the bye, means far more than merely personal, temporal possessions. It includes transcendent truths and values.
4. A patriot is certainly not necessarily a Christian, nor even necessarily a conservative. I am both, as well as a patriot.
5. The word that more correctly applies to this idea is traditionalist.
6. If you want to surrender further debating territory to the left, that is your choice. I absolutely refuse to do so, and will retain conscious use of, and personal claim to, the word, conservative.