I mostly agree with you; however, I think it a personality trait that leads to an ideology. Most people in the US are middle of the road. It is somewhat unfortunate that our two party system has increasingly push candidates to either extreme to appeal to their very loud bases.
I think in general, conservatives seem to want to see a policy work somewhere else first before adopting it nationally. That is why, imho, states rights are so important to them. However, when they do get power, they try to rush whatever changes they want through. Nevermind the fact that both parties are corrupted by money. So, like many people, their leaders seem to be hypocrites; they use arguments that appeal to conservative ideals, but only as an attempt to suppress the liberal ideas.
You make a good point on the problems associated with a two party system. Most issues in the world are not binary but unfortunately the world seems to simplify things to either you with us or against us. No one is better for it. Seems mainland Europe is slightly different. They seems to have a few large parties and the governments tend to be coalitions. So the big parties win about 30% of the vote. I can't speak for how effective it is but it feels right to me. As humans surely there isn't just two types of us.
I think in general, conservatives seem to want to see a policy work somewhere else first before adopting it nationally. That is why, imho, states rights are so important to them. However, when they do get power, they try to rush whatever changes they want through. Nevermind the fact that both parties are corrupted by money. So, like many people, their leaders seem to be hypocrites; they use arguments that appeal to conservative ideals, but only as an attempt to suppress the liberal ideas.