Conservative policies of DEM presidents and liberal policies of REP presidents

[RINO Tom]

FDR - I don't really consider having lukewarm views on civil rights - at that time - to be incompatible with the spirit of American liberalism at all, but we can agree to disagree?

Truman - See Cathcon's post ... the Old Right was very associated with an "America first" isolationism, and it wasn't really until Nixon and Reagan that this "American exceptionalism" idea stopped advocating not worrying about other countries' affairs and started to get the idea that our exceptionalism required us to spread our ideals through military might.

Ike - Just as Obama wasn't "conservative" due to the actions of his Congress, we can't exactly call Ike "liberal" for keeping tax rates that he inherited with a Democratic Congress in place ... he also lowered those rates eventually.  Again, I reject your categorization of civil rights, as Eisenhower (by all accounts, a moderate conservative) sent federal troops to integrate a state run by an openly socialist segregationist governor.

JFK - Taxes, sure, but they were pretty damn high ... just as I don't think it's fair to call early Republicans' support of infrastructure necessarily "liberal" (everyone supports infrastructure when, well, there hardly is any ... not really ideologically analagous with modern liberals' ideas on infrastructure, not to mention it was criticized as built for the wealthy and business elite), I am not sure this is THAT "conservative."  However, it at least makes him pretty moderate.  There was somewhat of an "anti-Communist consensus" around then, no?  Besides the far left of the Democratic Party, most people were pretty anti-communist, but I agree that JFK "ran to the right" on the issue.

LBJ - Again to Cathcon's post, LBJ certainly would not have thought of himself as engaging in a "conservative" mission abroad ... far from it.

Nixon - Nixon is hard to pin down ... I think it's safe to say the man believed very few policy positions with that much conviction, LOL.

Ford - Though it seems rabid pro-choice folks were always Democrats and rabid pro-life folks were usually Republicans, it wasn't nearly as partisan.  I think it should be easy for all of us to imagine some very convincing "liberal" arguments for being pro-life and "conservative" ones for being pro-choice.

Carter: Not much to add

Reagan - Not as "conservative" as he is popularized, IMO ... he gave a lot of credibility to the Religious Right in the GOP, and that carries more weight than his policy enactment (perhaps rightfully so).

Bush 41 - Definitely agree on the immigration thing ... even going back to the 1700s, American conservatism has relied on somewhat strict immigration policy, and both Bushes didn't seem to buy into that.  However, there was certainly a time when raising taxes to cover a defecit was, by definition, "fiscally conservative."

Bill Clinton - I don't think it can be discounted that he had a very hungry GOP Congress in front of him, but Clinton was the Democratic Nixon when it came to policy.

Bush 43 - Similarly to Reagan, I think Bush is remembered as "so conservative" because he empowered conservative groups, not because everything he did was so right-wing.

Obama - Not much to add ... might be too early to judge?

Trump - Way too early to judge, but he certainly seems to have an odd combination of love for business/zero need to apologize for wealth and financial success mixed with a bit of an anti-intellectual elite populism.

I don't like to nitpick your list like that, because you right away identified all of these people as liberals who might have DONE a few conservative THINGS (and vice versa), and most of what you said is true from our modern perspective.  However, things change, and I don't think a Northern Republican from New England in the 1930s who opposed the New Deal but supported civil rights legislation (that, relevantly, did not affect THEIR states) looked at someone like Theodore Bilbo (D-LA) - a borderline socialist on class issues and an ardent segregationist - and thought, "I'm more conservative than him on everything but civil rights."