There’s another point, a subtextual point if you will, in that some people are repelled by the word conservative. Some people like to think progressively, accept new ideas, embrace progress at least in some areas. The word conservative doesn’t fit.
Much in the same way that President’s use the word “strict constructionists” or “literalists” when it comes to appointing judges.
I identified in high school history class with the anti-federalists. I instinctively understood the unwieldiness of large, distant centralized bureaucracies and their tendency towards uniformity and the lowest common denominator. All progress is marked by individuals who strike out from the orthodoxy.
Finding a replacement word may be difficult. Anti-federalist, individualist, freedom, liberty... or I think it was Walter Williams who said 15+ years ago that we should take back the word Liberal.
“I identified in high school history class with the anti-federalists.”
Articles of Confederation, baby. George Mason and Patrick Henry rule. Although IIRC Henry converted to the dark side before he died.
Some of their dire predictions came true. But I don’t know if an Articles governed nation could have survived. The serious financial problems it suffered from were only solved by Alexander Hamilton using the taxing power granted by the Constitution.