Conservatives believe in community, piety, law and order, and people minding their place, while Liberals don’t.

Conservatism and Liberalism are the deep and contentious political points of view that have lasted since the Early Modern Period in European life, just as the conflict between church and state was the dominant opposing thought and political reality in the millennium that preceded it. It is a mistake that this central conflict arose when in 1790 the sides were set between left and right because of their seats in the French National Assembly. The roots are much deeper and more profound than that. They arise out of the response to the Scientific Revolution and to the conflict between crown and Parliament in England in the seventeenth century. The roots go deep and become at times unintelligible to one another even if other formulations have arisen as happened when in the second half of the twentieth century political philosophers, primarily Hannah Arendtg, thought the far right and the far left joined up as totalitarian, but by the end of the century there were no totalitarian societies left, except for the anachronism of North Korea, political institutions in China and Russia becoming merely authoritarian in  that they only intimidate and murder people who are political opponents while trying to meet their economic and public opinion matters as best they can. Similarly, the combination of Populist rhetoric of common sense easy solutions conjoined with plutocratic interests and power that is the distinctive point of view under Trump seems to me, if I am lucky, it will  be retired when Trump  leaves the scene, and politics will resume to be the conflict between  Liberals and Conservatives. We will see.