For sure, I’ve always described myself as a traditional conservative. Which in terms of when I grew up basically meant socially liberal or keeping government out of a citizen’s private business and lives, being fiscally responsible. Examples of the former is letting a woman decide on whether to have an abortion or not. No problems with gays in the military or marriage. Let love decide, not government. On the later, only spend what you take in, let spending match revenues. I agree with the numerous degrees of both Conservatism and Liberalism. I’m certainly no social conservative, religious conservative, neo-conservative or any other type. But since Gallup has been asking the same question from at least 1991, they’ve been consistent, that gives one a context to go on. Centrist and moderate are also categories that are hard to classify as is independents. What I’ve found out is most moderates will support the Democrats on somethings, support the Republicans on others and oppose them depending on the issue.
Trump is in another category altogether. He’s switched parties 7 times, each time adopting the political philosophy of the party he happens to belong to at the time. I’d say he’s totally devoid of a personal political ideology. Trump gets classified as a conservative only because he’s a Republican now. When he was a Democrat, he was a liberal. I hear the word RINO a lot, the true RINO is Trump himself. Nixon gets classified as a conservative because he was a Republican. But what he did, Nixon was one of the more liberal presidents since FDR if he wasn’t the most liberal. Nixon opened relations with Red China, he established the EPA, OSHA, the endangered species act, supported affirmative action, funds for education, imposed wage and price controls and more.
