[quote=@HachiRoku]
I hate to butt in, but the wording of 'conservative' and 'liberal'— rather, the way they've been misconstrued in American politics— is always something that ticked me off. On a traditional political scale, conservative means authoritarian and liberal means libertarian: i.e., conservative referring to traditional group-oriented politics, while liberal refers to progressive individualism. Oddly enough, in politics, it's noted that the scale got flipped 90 degrees, to which the authoritarian right is 'conservative' and the whole left is 'liberal', with no proper words left standing for the libertarian right.
[/quote]

At some point we decided words can change in meaning and usage, which is fair... to an extent. To my mind, the concept of conservatism being authoritarian is structurally unsound historically. Conservatism is based in small government and the individual rights of man, which is the ideological opposite of authoritarianism. Libertarianism (as it stands today), arguably, is the true original form of conservatism which would also make it closest to the vision of the founding fathers. You're not alone in the irritation of shifting definitions. Liberal no longer means what it was meant to mean anymore, and the same could be said of conservatism. Both of these shifts are responsible by far left individuals outright changing what the parties stand for, and this goes for the Mitt Romney's, McCain's, and the Bush's who significantly expanded government power. I'd also add that Obama did the same thing: see the NDAA. 

This is why I'm particularly glad that Trump is in office, we can now see who is ACTUALLY conservative and who is not. And, he's also getting politicians to reveal how left of center they truly are.