As with many other political leanings, there are different types of conservatives… a lot of them. So what exactly are the different types? And what type am I?
Often conservatives are just clumped together and labelled “The right”. However, just like the left, there are different types of conservatives!
19. Social Media conservatives
Social media conservatives are one of the more obscure types of conservatives. Their rise has come with the rise of the internet, most notably the rise of various social media platforms.
The oldest and crudest form of social media conservatism can be found on MySpace, the first widely-used social media platform.
As time progressed, social media conservatism has gotten wiser. They have kept up with the trends of the latest social media platforms, including using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and most recently Tik Tok.
Social media conservatives post clickbait style posts almost 24/7. Their aim is to bait in low information voters– voters who are on the fence about who to vote for.
They use emotive language and carefully curated images to get the highest amount of clicks to their content.
18. Traditional conservatives
Traditional conservatism is the conservatism of your grandparents (most likely!) They believe in the power of the constitution and the power it gives the government and the people.
They are opposed to socialism and communism and see them as truly “unamerican”. They also support small government- it shouldn’t overbear into people’s everyday lives too much.
They often support things like tax cuts, tax breaks to corporations in exchange for job creation, privatization, reducing spending and limiting entitlement programs.
They also emphasize the important of charity- you should give more of your income to charity than the government. Hence the tax cuts and so on!
17. New conservatives
New conservatives are one of the most contentious types of conservatives. This isn’t as a result of their ideologies, but because paleoconservatives and traditional either love them or hate them!
New conservatives are made up of young people, often Millennials and people younger. These are people who want something different.
However, this isn’t that they want to change conservative ideals, but that they simply want something other than the “norm”.
Remember, these are people who were born at the end of the Clinton administration. They were too young to remember the Bush administration so ended up with Obama being rammed down their throats.
But they didn’t buy it. In fact, they often had differing ideologies from those of their peers and teachers at school. And Trump took advantage of that in 2016 and will take advantage of it in 2020. Likely to great success!
16. Neoconservatives
Neoconservatism has its roots in the rise of the neopolitical movement.
Originally meant to oppose both the counter culture movement and Paleoconservatism, neoconservatism was soon altered during the 1970’s.
Many liberal scholars became disillusioned with the Democrats and decided to join the Republicans. However, they didn’t fully agree with the Paleoconservative ideals.
Eventually, they found the neoconservative movement, and altered it heavily. They believe in stimulating the economy through lower taxes and incentivizing business.
However, they also believe in giving the welfare system more funding, by finding alternative means to fund it!
15. Paleoconservatives
Paleoconservatism often emphasizes the past. Just as with other types of conservatives (including neoconservatives and religious conservatives), Paleoconservatives are extremely family-oriented.
They believe that a strong family life, connection to God and refraining from over-indulging is the key to a good and strong society.
However, Paleoconservatives do not accept the other offshoots of conservatism. They believe that they should be the sole conservative group in the world, united by ideology alone.
Some Paleoconservatives even believe that anyone who isn’t a Paleoconservative ie. someone who claims to be… say a new conservative is actually a liberal in disguise!
14. Gay conservatives
Gay conservatives share ideologies with most mainstream conservative groups in terms of fiscal and social policy.
However, where they differ from other types of conservatives is in terms of minorities and minority rights. Naturally, they believe in protecting gay rights in not only their own country/state but also internationally too!
They also differ by protecting and upholding the rights of other minority groups. Whether they are ethnic or religious groups!
They can often be seen defending the rights of Black and Latino voters, even when other members of “The right” are not!
13. Religious conservatives
Religious conservatives have their roots in the Bible or similar religious texts.
Whilst their beliefs range, depending on which religion they are apart of, and even what denomination they are! They do share many traits with one another!
They are often opposed to the idea of mass immigration- only those immigrants who are able to produce value (ie. highly skilled immigrants) should be allowed to live in the US.
They are also opposed to things like drug use, prostitution and abortion. They believe that these things are morally wrong and should be made illegal (if not already) and enforced to the full extent of the law.
They are also opposed to the idea of legalizing gay marriage, as the Bible, Quran and Torah forbid them. At the extreme (emphasis on extreme) they are also opposed to giving minorities rights. Although this isn’t very common.
12. Atheist conservatives
Atheist conservatives are one of the more controversial types of conservatives. For many traditional conservatives, paleoconservatives and religious conservatives, the idea of a godless conservative is like a god-fearing liberal.
It simply doesn’t happen!
Despite this however, many atheist conservatives believe in some form of higher being. They believe in fundamental religious principals- don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t womanize etc.
However, they believe that strictly enforcing religious ideals on conservatives is only serving as a deterrent for future conservatives. Why be ostracized as an atheist conservative when I am fine as a liberal?!
11. Black Conservatives
Blacks, as well as many other minorities, are overwhelmingly liberal. However, there is a minority of black voters who are more conservative than liberal.
And this type of conservatism is growing! Many black voters, not just in the US, but also the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand too, are feeling disenfranchised by the left.
They are seeing the rising levels of class warfare, where they are used as “prime examples” and are sick of it.
They see the disparities between blacks and whites, not as racism, but a difference in mindset. The previous generations of black voters have been too complacent with being “lower class”, rather than working to become “upper class”!
10. Latino conservatives
As with the case of black voters, Latinos are more often than not, liberal. Just as with black voters as well, there is a small minority, or in this case a majority as it seems, of conservative Latinos.
In fact, despite many of Trump’s remarks about Mexicans being “rapists” and “bringing drugs and crime”, he managed to win 29% of the Latino vote. That’s a lot more than Hilary Clinton’s 11%!
Conservative Latinos believe in the unity of family and the importance of religion in politics.
Just as Black conservatives have, they’ve seen the divisiveness of the Democrats and have needed a change. They also don’t see eye-to-eye with Democrats due to their Spanish culture, history and philosophy which often go against Latino ideals.
9. Liberal conservatives
Liberal conservatives are one of the oddest types of conservatives. They often support war, religion and having a strong economy, but also support nationalization and other liberal views.
As with many other conservatives they support Israel in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. However, unlike other types of conservatives, they are also anti-isolation.
Economically speaking they are more socialist (and liberal) than capitalist (and conservative). Socially speaking, they are very conservative, even more so than people like Reagan!
Although many are members of the Republican and Tory parties, they are almost never full members. In fact, many liberal conservatives in the Republican Party are called RINOs (Republicans in name only).
8. Conservative liberals
Conservative liberalism is considered to be at the far left of the right or at the far right of the left. Essentially it combines liberal ideals with conservative stances.
For example, conservative liberals are often very religious people and believe in a strong family life. However, they differ from their conservative peers by believing in supporting various different social issues.
They believe in supporting minority rights and abolishing injustice throughout the country. Not just on a national level but also on a state and personal level too!
7. Libertarians
Libertarians are bordering on the left side of the right. They are also incredibly difficult to pin down central beliefs- no two libertarians share 100% the same beliefs.
Just like conservatarians (more on them later!) they believe in decriminalizing all types of illegal drugs, prostitution and illegal immigration.
Libertarians often also believe in limiting the power of individual states and the government overall. This is to prevent an authoritarian government from rising up in its place and taking over.
Libertarians often advocate for complete, or near-complete, isolation from the rest of the world. They believe that we should produce as much as possible in our own country to protect jobs and the economy.
Speaking of the economy, libertarians also believe that privatization and de-regulating our economy is the way forward.
They know that stat-owned enterprises are a burden to the state, and can be ran successfully privately. They also believe that by de-regulating the economy, private businesses will become more profitable and provide more tax income and jobs!
6. Libertarian conservatives
Just as with conservative liberals, libertarian conservatives are considered to be at the far right of the left or at the far left of the right.
Their ideologies and viewpoints are very close to conservative liberals, however are radically different at times.
Just as with conservative liberals, they believe in supporting minority rights and upholding them on a personal, state and national level. However, it’s their economic policy where they begin to differ form conservative liberals.
They believe in extreme free-market capitalism to best help the people and the government with almost no government intervention. They also believe in heavily funding public services, especially education!
5. Alt-right
Unfortunately for many conservatives, the term “conservative” for some has the implication of the alt-right. That is to say an extreme form of conservatism that rejects mainstream media and other types of conservatism.
Although the alt-right has existed in some form or another for several centuries, it has been brought to the mainstream thanks to the internet.
The internet has allowed many members of the alt-right become media moguls. They have made millions by publishing deliberately controversial content, that gets debates fired up, between conservatives and liberals alike!
Many of these members have supported Republican and conservative candidates in recent years, including Donald Trump and Boris Johnson!
4. Conservatarians
Conservatarians are a unique blend of libertarian and conservative. As with libertarians, they hold very left-leaning views but also very right-leaning ones too!
For example, conservatarians believe that we should decriminalize prostitution, drugs and illegal immigration. Something that borrows heavily from their libertarian backgrounds.
However, conservatarians also believe in being pro-business but are anti-cronyism. They believe that it is the job of a strong government to promote business but only step in if it gets too bad for the people.
It is for this reason why many different types of conservatives see conservatarians as more liberal than conservative!
3. Social conservatives
Social conservatives believe in vehemently protecting the status quo. This should be done through maintaining our sexual relationships, being patriotic and having a strong family life.
Social conservatives are often opposed to the idea of divorce, believing it to create dysfunctional homes and thus problems in the future.
Social conservatism states that in order for society to operate efficiently, a rigid social structure needs to be established. This idea makes it both very similar and very different from other types of conservatives.
Hence the reason why some conservatives (and liberals) don’t like social conservatives!
Social conservatism often opposes state-atheism, however not atheism itself. They believe that if we allow states to stop believing in God, that societal order will simply break down as a result.
2. Fiscal conservatives
Fiscal conservatives are economically-focused. Whilst they may be more liberal in other aspects, they are very isolationist in their economic views.
As with many other types of conservatives, fiscal conservatives believe in privatizing state-owned companies. As with Libertarians, fiscal conservatives understand that state-owned enterprises are a waste of money for the government.
Fiscal conservatives also believe in lowering taxes. They believe that by lowering taxes, it will incentivize the economy to perform much better. Private businesses will invest their profits, in turn creating jobs, and consumers will buy more stuff!
By doing these two things, fiscal conservatives believe that the government debt will be dramatically lowered. They also believe that government spending will become less as a result!
1. Cultural conservatives
Cultural conservatives believe in upholding our heritage. Both the good and the bad.
They believe that we should try to form better friendships between nations not based on ideology but on a shared sense of identity. And there are several ways we can ‘identify’ ourselves.
Cultural conservatives believe that we should become stronger allies with countries that speak the same language as us. This means that we should try to make better friendships with other English-speaking countries, especially Canada and Britain!
But this could also mean French and Spanish-speaking countries too! After all, places like Illinois and Louisiana still have large French-speaking populations! As do Texas, Florida and California for Spanish!
There are many different types of conservatives, which are you? Tell me in the comments!