I think that is a valid point.

My take is that both parties are both conservative by your definition... The majority of the policy objectives have to do with strengthening established interests and established money flows, and keeping established winners on top.

I also think both parties have a similar fondness for authoritarianism that you ascribe to conservatives.

On social issues there are bigger differences, but ultimately not many that would actually become law. When you filter the two parties alleged ideals and remove the things that would never become law, there is not much difference at all.

For instance, both parties strongly support the US foreign military intervention (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.) and massive public/private partnerships for the financial services industry and healthcare industry. These industries (defense, financial services, healthcare) make up the majority of campaign contributions to both parties.

In a way I agree about similarities, but in a way enormous differences remain. I've heard the same general argument (usually from progressives) before your comment made me analyze it in more detail.

> keeping established winners on top

On one hand, the unfortunate nature of politics is that interests obtain power, and then use it to protect it. However, minorities such as LGBTQ people, Black and Latino people, etc. are not vested interests.

> both parties strongly support the US foreign military intervention (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.) and massive public/private partnerships for the financial services industry and healthcare industry. These industries (defense, financial services, healthcare) make up the majority of campaign contributions to both parties.

(... and oil and gas.) Yes and no. Both parties supported Iraq and support defense spending, but Iraq was GOP led and the GOP advocates military force far more often. Both are influenced by powerful interests, but the Dems want to regulate financial services more, the GOP wants to cut back. There is a vast difference between the parties' budget plans and vision of government. Positions on climate change and immigration are night and day.

I'm not sure how to characterize it more generally though, where they are the same and where they differ. It's an important, interesting question.

> There is a vast difference between the parties' budget plans and vision of government

Yet no matter which party holds the presidency and controls the legislature, we end up with the same status quo year after year.

This would simply not be possible unless both parties were heavily invested in maintaining the status quo.

On the other hand, the best rhetoric to use when fundraising is about things that will not happen (overturning Roe vs Wade, for example) because then there is no accountability when the status quo continues. Not coincidentally, both parties use this particular issue as a major fundraising plank.

> we end up with the same status quo year after year

As I said, in some ways that is true and some ways it's not, but now we're going in circles.

The budget and economy, foreign policy (including wars), health care, and more were much different when Bill Clinton left office, when Bush left office, and now near the end of Obama's terms.

The courts have been and will be much different depending on who is elected. Congress acts very differently depending on which party controls it.

EDIT: LGBTQ rights are a big change of the status quo, as is a black President and changes in national health care. And before that, pre-emptive war, torture, Guantanamo, and mass surveillance were big changes. Congressional gridlock is ironically a big change, as is only 8 Supreme Court justices.

It would have been interesting to learn something about in what cases it's true about the status quo and in what cases it's not.

Don't forget that HRC and Obama both felt strongly (based on their faith) that marriage was between a man and a woman until popular opinion was quite a bit more progressive and there was no longer any political cost to being supportive of LGBTQ rights.

While politicians like to pretend that they are a source of progressive energy, any member of a major party will typically lag by at least several years on any important issue... until it's "safe" or "mainstream" enough not to threaten the status quo too much.

I simply do not believe that HRC and Obama suddenly realized that LGBTQ rights mattered, they are self-serving self-promoters who calculatingly switched their opinions only when it was advantageous to do so. Such horrible, unprincipled people do not deserve our support!

Liberals don't necessarily seek progress and change, those would be progressives, liberalism is concerned with personal liberties and equality. It's also important to note that liberalism does not have necessarily an affinity as far as the left/right wing goes, or to be more exact by definition liberalism is an intrinsically centric view.

Communism is just as enemy of liberalism as Fascism is and for all intents and purposes both modern and classical liberalism are by far more compatible with current US conservatism than with either of those. And historically the opponents of laissez-faire capitalism were the conservatives who did not like the political and social changes that economic liberalism brought.

However the GP is quite correct that these days liberalism in the US is not focused about it's original or historic core values, modern US conservatives are the ones who root for the causes of traditional liberalism.

Liberalism in the way it was adopted by the left in the US is very much focused on statism and socialism way beyond what one might be considered traditionally liberal, especially considering that historically liberalism fought against taxation (especially progressive taxation) and government intervention.

What was and should be liberal today in the US is more in line with the "libertarian" worldview, while the "liberals" are more in line with socialism and it's various offshoots.