I agree with you. I might add that the term ‘conservative’ may mean differently from one person to another. One may be a social conservative but love to pay high taxes to help poor people. Other may hold tightly to their hard-earned money and despises any kind of tax, but is happy that his son is gonna to married his lover, Steve, next month. Hence, I don’t want to read to much about the number of self-declared ‘conservative’.
You’re right about the definition of conservative. And it cuts both ways.
Most people of Mexican ancestry are conservative on 10 of 12 issues. But they have more of a classical definition of conservative and liberal where conservative is identified with the privileged gentry of Europe and with government protected mercantilism/corporatism in Latin America and not with small government, freedoms or capitalism. Democrat means little d democracy while Republican is associated with the “Republican Guards” and the Republicans of France when France controlled Mexico.
The Black sub-culture has a different variant of the definition.