Definition: Political conservatism in the United States is both an intellectual/theoretical tradition and a popular political movement.

As an intellectual tradition, political conservatism does not necessarily focus on any particular political position or issue. In fact, most conservative traditionalists disagree with one another over a number of issues including (but not limited to) a******n, stem cell research, capital punishment, the environment and war. Nevertheless, these intellectual traditionalists tend to subscribe to the same conservative principles, those being primarily the importance of family, but also a small or limited government, a strong national defense and free enterprise.

Conservatism is also an umbrella term that embodies several different types of politically conservative philosophies. These are often primarily identified as neoconservatism, paleoconservatism and social conservatism, but they also include fiscal conservatism, cultural conseratism and crunchy conservatism.