[agrostis]

Hmm. One funny thing is that VVD, one of the parties in question, is generally labeled as “conservative-liberal”. Your average American con would probably suffer a mental breakdown when trying to sort it out. (I'm conservative myself, by the way, whatever that might mean here in Russia.)

[zalew]

It's because the US version of conservatism in most of the world is called liberalism.

[brazzy]

Hm, not really. The problem is that the USA has a two-party system where each party is in favor of some of the tenets of classic liberalism (civil liberties on one hand, a lightly regulated and taxed economy on the other) but opposed to others, and somehow "liberal" was chosen as a label for the pro-civil-liberties side, ignoring the other aspects of classic liberalism.

In other parts of the world, you have more parties, which makes room for liberal parties that are in favor of both gay marriage and tax breaks for the rich.

[zalew]

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

"The meaning of "conservatism" in America has little in common with the way the word is used elsewhere. As Ribuffo (2011) notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism."[21]"