What do you think defines conservativism? There's progressivism and there's conservativism. One wants more government and the other wants less. The left wing, right wing, Republican, and Democrat parties are fabricated. Both parties could slant progressive (to varying degrees) and both could slant conservative. Political parties basically care about winning elections, and if you knew the Democratic party's history, you'd know their social engineering going back to the 1800s, a time in which they founded and led the Klu Klux Klan, they have always been about social control. They've also always been against freedom, going back to the 1800s when they despised the North for its industrious capitalism. The South was practically Marxist back then. Fast forward, the Democrats now use different methods, and they have caught up the more conservative party in it entirely.

Yes, you saw my tags, but I am not preaching moral values with them. I first got interested in politics when I learned about the absurdities in economics. (My background is in physics, computer science, and various fields of math; I read up on economics and game theory, learned about the current state of things, and was floored). Ignoring every single value that you may perhaps believe is a pet issue for someone or a moral right to someone else, look at this very, very simply: the government manipulates banking, the stock markets, education, housing, healthcare, drives business and jobs down with taxes and labor policies, and pays 50% of its budget to welfare recipients, enabling mass cultures of perpetual ineptitude.

Look, I just mentioned "the establishment" and secret society bankers, "wall street greed" (greed is irrelevant, by the way), "think of the children!", "banker greed of '08", "Obamacare", "everyone in the world has free healthcare but us!", "corporate America sucks!", "Occupy Wall Street", "minimum wage sucks", "public unions suck tax payers dry" (truth, see Wisconsin and what Scott Walker has fixed), and "but mah skin color means I can't make money", among others I could have mentioned.

You see, it is accurate to call for limited government, but it's disingenuous to think it is due to a hatred for "other people" or "the government", like my liberal friend is convinced my argument is about.

People think the world is about ideas. Like "if everyone just thought my way, everything would be great". That goes for Democrats that know the government is corrupt but just hope more money and a bigger government will somehow solve that problem. (I've seen the delusion). That also goes for Trump supporters, who believe that if everyone was just politically incorrect, then everyone would return to logical discourse and all of the left wing will be won over.

The world is simply about power. And money, which is a form of power. When the power changes, so will the beliefs of the people. Thus, "the economy", in other words the summation of what every person does during their public life (during the hours they are not at home, sleeping, watching TV, or fucking), is everything.

Let's go back to your question. Why is Kasich not a conservative? Does he want to reduce government's involvement in any part of the economy? No. That's all that matters. Let's see how long any part of the Bill of Rights lasts when the economic path we are on continues. There will be riots in the streets. Then the cops will come for our guns, and they will say we can't talk bad about the government. Why? Because we will all need the government to survive by that point. Stopping its activities will be deemed "too big to fail".

The reason you probably never realized this is because we've been a frog sitting in water, as it slowly goes from cool to boiling. Every policy that was insane 150 years ago was passed 100 years ago. Every policy that was insane 100 years ago was passed 70 years ago. Every policy that was insane 50 years ago was passed 30 years ago. Every policy that was insane 15 years ago was passed in this past in this past presidential term. (Again, going back to Trump and Kasich, not a single Republican in their right mind would have claimed nationalized healthcare is even close to acceptable just 15 years ago!!!) No one knows history anymore. We had the biggest dictator of US history, Franklin D. Roosevelt, about 85 years ago, and no one even remembers it. Everyone thinks he was a bastion for presidential greatness. It's been about 100 years coming, starting with Woodrow Wilson and the Federal Reserve. We will not see another 100 years at this rate.