Conservatism could save America, the small-c kind

Conservatism is in decline. True, it’s not dead — in 2025, a larger share of Americans described themselves as conservative (35%) than liberal (28%) — but this seven-point difference is the smallest Gallup has measured since 1992.

This is bad news for American politics. As a philosophy, conservatism possesses the key virtue that’s missing from modern political life: humility. “What is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness,” wrote Edmund Burke, one of the fathers of conservatism. He was right.

While conservatives have historically found a home in the Republican Party, it’s not necessarily a partisan label. Conservatives represented as many as 20% of Democrats until the last decade — dropping to 8% today — and continue to make up more than a quarter of independents.

We are all feeling the effects of conservatism’s decline. Populists and progressives, Christian nationalists and liberals, even libertarians — recall DOGE and Project 2025 — Americans of all political tendencies increasingly favour sweeping, disorienting political change. It’s small-c conservatives who favour incremental reform; who are wary of concentrated power, government overreach and demagogues.

Of course, moderates favour moderation and divided powers too, and their influence is also in decline. But don’t confuse a moderate for a conservative. For moderates, compromise is an end in itself. Conservatives favor incremental change not because everything has a midpoint, but out of respect for the past: What brought us this far likely has some good to it. Conservatism is a posture of gratitude, as one of its forerunners, William F. Buckley, wrote — another trait in short supply.

The US hasn’t seen much conservative governance lately. Over the last decade, both parties have racked up big electoral wins and taken big swings at implementing their partisan visions. Republicans had unified government in 2017-2018. Democrats had unified government in 2021-2022. Republicans had unified government again starting in 2025.

Like clockwork, after every two years of seeing what the party in power does, Americans have soured on their vision, flipped the switch for divided government in midterms, then given the other party complete control over Washington the next presidential election cycle. (Based on Beltway happenings over the last 10 years — from cover-ups to corruption, inflation to new wars — really, who can blame us?)

But at a deeper level, there’s no clear partisan mandate for governing America. According to Gallup, 27% of Americans identify as Republicans and 27% as Democrats. The largest political group in the US is those who refuse to be identified by party: Independents now make up 45% of the electorate — a historic high. This calls for humility. It calls for political parties that moderate their policies, widen their coalitions, and not overestimate their reach.

On this front, conservatism has much to offer. Conservatism is wary of concentrated power and of moving too quickly. It reminds us that building institutions is harder than breaking them. Conservatism is rooted in ancient principles of character, virtue and dignity beyond immediate political expediency. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote, “The old virtue of moderation, of keeping within bounds, is indeed one of the political virtues par excellence, just as the political temptation par excellence is indeed hubris.”

Astute observers will note that while declining overall, the share of self-identified conservatives has recently grown within the Republican Party. By my arguments, this should result in a more humble and cautious party, not a more braggadocious one.

My best guess is that there remains a decline in small-c conservatism relative to conservatism as defined by the shifting ideological musings of the modern Republican Party. Today’s GOP harkens to the “conservative” ideas of country, family, and faith — but in a way that’s rash and revolutionary in spirit, pushing against the wisdom of divided powers and eschewing virtue. This suggests the decline in small-c conservatism is perhaps even greater than the generalised drop-off that shows up in the polling.

This should worry us all. In their book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that a small-c conservative party is often the most critical gatekeeper in preventing democratic collapse by supporting institutions and upholding the “rules of the game.” This, of course, is not always a popular position. Burke himself was rejected across the political spectrum.

The good news is that conservatism’s revival doesn’t depend on any party. It’s a disposition toward politics available to everyone. Politicians and voters can choose to elevate leaders of humility and high moral character, lay out prudent and pragmatic answers to the challenges we face, and strengthen institutions and alliances. They can resist executive control and instead push Congress to function better, as the Founders intended it to do. Goodness knows, the field for such behaviour is wide open.