No true Scotsman? Yes, there are conservative loonies today (just as there always have been). There are also hangers ons/co-opters/johnny come latelys who adopt the "conservative" label as a means to legitimize their platforms. None of these are relevant to what is being discussed in this thread.
The first sentence of the Wikipedia article on conservatism is exactly what I mean:
> Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.
By promoting the incumbent ideas, there's no chance that they "freak(s) out wider society" as the OP said. The ideology is simply to resist change, which will almost always be less controversial than advocating for change.
The so-called conservatives are radical centrists at best. While today’s „far-right“ would have been considered moderate conservatives not so long ago.
I have no idea what you're talking about. The current "far right" is rounding up the brown people (except the ones they agree with) and sending them to concentration camps. That would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, even on the right. And it's definitely not centrist.
As a european, US migration situation is insane. And it’s hard to cal US „right“ that tolerated such policies promoting illegal migration for decades a „right“ wing.
And european mainstream right is no longer right for the last few decades on those topics. Today’s „far“ right sound like what mainstream right would say 10-20-30 years ago depending on exact country.
You are saying that for you, last decade's right is centrist or left. And you are saying that last decade's right would call the current right centrist or left. So what are you?
Good question. My views didn't change. But somehow from voting moderate centre-right or even classical liberal I had to start voting for far-right instead. So... who am I?
You said it yourself - even the right used to tolerate illegal immigration. But you were okay voting the center right at that time. And now you're voting the far right who are putting them in concentration camps. So you're far right, but you didn't used to be.
My views didn't change. I voted moderate right before it was tolerating migration.
Here „far“ right offer is to deport illegals and curb new migration.
Also, we have detention centers since forever. What do you propose to do with illegal migrants waiting deportations instead? Put them in prisons? That's a wee to harsh, isn't it?
Of course, then people can start talking BS about muh concentration camps with allusions to soviet and nazi camps. But those camps had some specific features that ain't present in detention centers.
Why do you think so? Would it not be better to recognize fascism/nazism as early as possible? Hitler was in power for several years, doing various increasingly bad stuff, before he started the holocaust.
Nowadays this label is overused so much that it pretty much lost it's meaning. It's not fascism-nazism to be against mass migration. Nor it's fascism-nazism to not fully support whatever letter comes next to join LGBTQAZ+ or whatever it is now.
Just like it's not communism to advocate for better welfare, labor rights, affordable housing and so on.
Well, the "right", or more aptly conservatives, actively resist change in culture and society. They conserve it (hence the name).