Decades ago the U.S. had “liberals” who supported FDR’s New Deal and who tended to support labor and civil rights.
Our nation also had “conservatives” who accepted the New Deal and who tended toward business interests instead of labor. They were “conservative,” not cruel.
But now the “conservatives” have run off the rails into extreme right-wing cruelty. Many are blatantly sexist and racist (with Trump campaigning and governing without the “dog whistle” subtlety). The Republican Party has effectively merged with the Religious Right, and some of those people want to impose right-wing Christianity as the U.S.’s national religion. Nearly all moderate Republicans have been purged from the Republican Party, which has now become a cult supporting Trump as our savior.
On March 2, 2019, Trump gave a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. His speech was two hours of rambling lies, hatred, etc. See this article: https://prospect.org/article/liar-racist-cheat-your-president-america-cpac-seal-approval
This article points out that “conservatism” has no intellectual life anymore, but many people have not noticed its intellectual bankruptcy: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/2/1838924/-Liberals-and-the-left-fail-to-notice-and-celebrate-the-intellectual-death-of-conservatism?detail=emaildkcs
This article says NOW IS THE TIME TO DEBUNK AND DISCREDIT “CONSERVATISM”: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/6/1824087/-Conservatism-is-on-the-run-We-need-to-chase-it-down-and-kill-it?detail=emaildkre