For all of US history, conservatives have been on the wrong side.
Conservatives in 1776 were on the side of the Crown.
They were the Confederacy.
They were the KKK.
They were on the side of the Robber Barons.
They were anti-suffragists.
They were anti-civil rights.
They were anti-LGBTQ rights.
They're anti-healthcare, anti-education, anti-environment right now.
With their failure to address Russia's attacks on our elections and their refusal to hold Trump accountable for his crimes, they're also now anti-democracy.
They have always been the bad guys in US history. Every single generation we've had has had to fight them tooth and nail to make progress. We win, and we leap forwards with policies like the abolition of slavery, or the vote for women, or child labor laws, or civil rights, or abortion, or gay marriage, but their wealthy owners sit back and regroup and launch another attack on civilization after a few years.
And it works. Specifically because conservatives are tribalist cavemen who will do whatever their Big Chief tells them to do. They're authoritarians by nature who believe that right and wrong don't come from structured moral philosophies, but from whatever their chieftain tells them is right or wrong. What's true or false.
They're weak-minded children at heart, who yearn for an all-powerful father figure to provide easy structure to their world. Because they cannot handle the complexities of real life. Because the burden of free thought is too much for them to handle. And because they are fundamentally terrified of change. Change, above all, is beyond their understanding, and they know it.