Yes it is. But could also be all right wing political parties. The Canadian right are actually called Conservative. I honestly can’t understand why anyone would be conservative leaning politically unless they were rich.
I get your opinion. Conservative values are much more important in the countryside, where everyone knows every single person in the whole village. It's all about where you stand in life. If you are a young student in a huge city you are way more likely to be left-leaning for obvious reasons. Meanwhile the majority of people in the countryside are right-leaning generally speaking. But it's always sad to see people labeling so many people they don't know as stupid or malevolent. Of course, having seen some Canadian and US-American conservative politicians I absolutely understand where you are coming from. Most of their speeches are filled with populist rhetoric.
The thing is if you take any conservative. Any one at all and remove them from a conservative echo chamber and educate them and introduce them to other cultures they always become more liberal / left.
I think framing it as urban vs rural is disingenuous but it’s also hard to narrow down what exactly is left vs right. It’s played like a shell game with the definitions been twisted to suit agendas. I grew up rural in a town of <2000 and now live in a town of <5000. I feel it has more to do with empathy and compassion vs fear and the need to attack the “other” as it’s easier to drag them down rather than build everyone up.
I get wanting to be able to defend yourself and your family but far too many people are using that shit as an excuse to murder others. Also, there’s no possible way any amount of militia is going to take on the US armed forces. No amount of small arms fire is taking out a B-52.
As someone who holds both left and right views depending on the issue, I understand wanting to lean conservative. Social programs, better infrastructure, and higher taxes make sense when you can trust your government to spend your money wisely. The problem is they don't and people in government are incentivised to not do their job efficiently because then they would lose funding or their job entirely. And lately, the right has no concern over lowering taxes for the average citizen or increasing government efficiency despite that being one of core fundamentals of the party.
I miss the days of hating both sides equally because they could both be trusted to be corrupt and incompetent. One side has decided to be cruel now though and anyone who “both sides” the comparison can’t be taken as a serious person.
Conservativism - "Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology, which seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values." - Wikipedia
There is nothing wrong with wanting to preserve some traditions, institutions or values. The issue many have with it is when the things wanted to be preserved are racist or harmful to many people, etc. There are some things we need to move past, like slavery, and then there are some people that will loudly proclaim themselves conservative and say we should go back to slavery.
And yes, a lot of that does seem to be the USA's/Canada's current conservative parties.
But wanting to "keep things as they are/were" isn't a horrible thing in and of itself, but it's often the specific things that they want to go back to.
It's only ever those specific things, because if society actually LIKED or WANTED those things anymore they'd be doing them and it wouldn't need to be "conserved".
Oh, you want to keep your traditional folk dance or scarf or goat-herding technique? Great! Those damned melting pot liberals love that stuff. They eat it up. They want more cultures to explore. What they don't want is to be told they're going to hell for who they love, or that child labor is good or any of the other insane things "conservatives" want to conserve.