Unfortunately, whatever ideal you hold of conservative doesn't exist. Trumpism is conservatism's current expression in America and Trump is its thought leader. If conservatives were ok tying their cart to a populist demagogue, then they're going to have to go along for the authoritarian ride.

The Republican Party has been the conservative party in name only since at least Reagan, if not Nixon. I'm making a distinction about political schools of thought and ideologies, not current vernacular or American politics.

No true Scotsman, really?

Conservatism is a movement dating back to the French Revolution, arguably further back, didn't originate in America, and isn't defined by or limited to the Democratic Party / Republican Party divide. Trumpism is not conservatism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Language evolves. Saying that today’s conservatives are not true conservatives is the literal definition of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

It's like the distinction between "liberal" and "liberalism." The former being a dirty slur word in American politics, and the latter being an entire field of economic and political philosophy dating back to the enlightenment. The latter definition is still in use among the educated. So too, with "conservative," at least outside of your American news bubble.

I don’t view American news, but thanks for the condescension.

Arguing for an academic definition as somehow true and absolute, in contradiction to common usage, is a lost cause. Language prescriptivists always lose in the long run.

In the US, classical liberalism is largely despised by the same people who despise political liberalism. Funnily enough, those people are conservatives by either definition.

It’s unfortunate that academic conservatism keeps turning into real world populism (and certainly classical liberalism has seen that as well). But language evolves, and it’s n order to be able to communicate, terminology must as well.

It’s just a word. Words change. There’s no reason to defend an archaic meaning when it’s just going to cause confusion in almost every context.

Okay then, did the average conservative vote for him?

Conservatism barely exists in the US today.