[giraffe_lady]

I don't think that distinction holds anymore in the american political context, assuming it ever did.

Several projects of the conservative movement would cause sweeping or dramatic changes to the status quo, or are otherwise destabilizing. Trying to reinstate a social or political circumstance that existed 70 or 150 years ago is revanchism and will be just as disruptive as the changes themselves were. Someone who highly valued stability for its own sake would not pursue those projects.

And through that lens a lot of "progressive" positions are conservative: environmentalism, labor relations, regulation on growth of certain industries. A lot of these boil down to "let's just not" or not so much, not so fast or we don't need it; inherently conservative stances.

Literal conservatism is the branding and justification of the political movement but in fact both sides of this are accepting of change in some situations and resistive of it in others. They differ in what values they use to decide what changes to support or oppose. And the model of simple openness to change is completely inadequate to explain which, or why.