I will repost this as it shows that all the wings of a particular ideology are contradictory to some extent. Basically the reason for this is its impossible for an super coherent ideology across the board to really represent one whole side of a nation as large as ours.
So basically this is what I would say when you hear catchphrases:
"Small Government" is representing Economic Conservatism
"Family Values" is representing Social Conservatism
"Strong Defense" is representing National Security Conservatism
And social conservatives would make the same argument in reverse that policies that break up traditional norms due to pro growth policies are not conservative either . Anyway this is all semantics as everyone knows that what is defined as a conservative here is a coalition of different types of conservatives and not a single brand of it and all 3 contradict each other in some ways and did even in the “3 legged stool” era of Conservatism .
Economic Conservatives: They are for low taxes , less regulation, less spending , generally pro business policies and also “small government”.
National Security Conservatives: They are for maintaining American Hegemony which means a strong national defense , tougher stance against adversaries , and intervening to promote our interests and to shape the world in our image
Social conservatives: They are for promoting traditional “family values and norms” , are very religious etc
So yes all have naturally contradictory beliefs .
Economic and National Security: Flies right into the fact of economic conservatives that spending should be cut and visa versa
Economic and Social Conservatives: Can contradict small government belief of economic conservatives and promoting traditional values of social conservatives
National Security and Social : Many times goals of nationals security conservatives can push other nations to become more socially liberal.
The job of a political party is to put all these things together and what the GOP generally has done is by choosing the ones that contradict the least from each and dropping the others. So what each has chosen is:
Economic Conservatives: Low Taxes and Less Regulations
National Security Conservatives: More Military Spending and tougher stance against adversaries(Of course what the main adversary is has also changed with time)
Social Conservatives: Anti Abortion and defending norms that have at least 40% support from the nation.
