Why's America more conservative than other Western Nations? Plus party challenge

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

This question's premise is flawed: America is not a conservative nation. Americans, more so than the citizens of most "Western Nations", do not have an abiding faith in the customs, values and conventions of "tradition". Furthermore, the idiom of American politics is an idiom that's actively hostile to the idea of collective or corporate bodies. When Americans speak of politics, they use the language of the American religion: Individualism. This is all to say that America is a nation that tends to be hostile to the modern European political tradition, which is located in forms of corporate interest: confessional traditions, class etc. This does not mean that Americans do not possess a sense of collective responsibility but that Americans tend to be averse to using the government to meet these responsibilities. This is why Americans love the direct action of unions but disdain the welfare state and love the idea of "co-ops" but deplore the idea of nationalization. It's also why America has a storied tradition of labor radicalism but only a brief history of working class politics.

One of the ironies of American Individualism is that it has been reconciled with good old American communalism, which remains an important but often overlooked American article of faith. Our political language may be located in the individual but not those individuals, who are Papists or swarthy or Jew-y etc. American racial caste played a crucial role in limiting the potential of socialism: how could there be "class consciousness" in the early 20th century when skilled workers were largely WASPs or assimilated Irish or Germans and unskilled workers could hardly speak English? In Europe, skilled workers formed the bedrock of socialism. In the US, skilled workers tended to oppose socialism, especially after World War I.

If I had to succinctly re-state my argument, I'd say that America is many things but it's certainly not conservative and that it is defined by the odd interaction between American caste and American Individualism, which often produces a garbled politics that's hard to define using comparative terms. In this sense, American is a very exceptional nation. It defies easy explanation. 

Note: my claims are gross over-generalizations but that's inevitable when discussing American values or political traditions.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm not sure if it is significantly more conservative than other industrialised countries. It has been much tougher territory for socialism than most but that is not exactly the same thing and is not an exclusive feature to the United States (i.e. the history of socialist politics in Canada is primarily one of noble failure). The fact that a large socialist party never established itself (although the SPA came close and maybe could have managed it with competent leadership: alas it had a saint instead) is significant and is unusual and has had important consequences (i.e. on the scope of social welfare policies etc), but is entirely explicable by the unusual structure of the American political system which happens to be wickedly effective at stymieing new political movements and at resisting structural change.

I'd argue that the structural explanation is typically over-emphasized when answering this question. There's something about American sensibilities that was not compatible with the style and the approach of the SPA. I'd also argue that the SPA's inception occurred at an unfortunate time, when racism was arguably at its peak and this racism was being applied against immigrant groups that the SPA relied on. When the SPA succeeded with "native-born Americans", it was in parts of the US that were very homogeneously "native-born". When the SPA succeeded outside of the West, it tended to do so with particular immigrant groups but not others.

This could also be said about Canada though so I'm not sure that it's a satisfactory answer.