link to original reddit post by /u/natermer

Prior to the rise of the "Traditional American Conservative" we had Progressives era were Waspy Puritan types tried to reimport European political structures into the USA that they picked from the Socialist universities in Prussia and Germany. These people were obsessed with growing state power in order to purify America (racially and culturally), create a more Imperialist country, and create opportunities for Mercantilist economic policies that manipulated the markets in favored of those with political connections, which we now call Crony Corporatism.

The term they adopted, Progressive, is actually misnomer. They were not trying to improve the country, they were trying to roll back most of the economic and civic improvements that were put in place since the American revolution. They wanted a return to Absolutism and Mercantilism.

As a response to the resulting massive erosion to Liberty the American Conservative movement grew up to create opposition to Progressive. They sought a return to a system of liberty, religious freedom, small government, and to eliminate imperialism.

This movement arose principally during the era of the 1930s and since the 1950s there have been a combination of big business and state interests attempting to destroy and undermine American conservatism. The reason for is that this was part of a concerted effort to eliminate any and all domestic opposition to the state and growing military dominance of America and the creation of a post-WW2 world order with the USA Federal government at the center of it.

Since the 1950s propagandists have attempted to take over and distort the message of conservatives. Since the 1960s all traditional American conservatives politicians present in the Federal level were purged from both parties or effectively suppressed.

Since the 1980's the popular image of American conservatism has been changed from a social movement advocating small government, individual liberty and personal responsibility into a "Republican Incorporated" social movement obsessed with worshiping the police/military, favoring the interests of large public corporations, state enforced morality and big government spending.

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Similarly Classic Liberalism arose, much earlier, as a reaction to the doctrine of Absolutism and the establishment of the modern sovereign state model of government. They objected to the aggressive domination of the world by a immoral government with no real checks except ones the state choose to implement themselves.

And, again, similar to American conservatism Liberalism faced concerted effort at erosion and take over by regressive elements in power. Much of this take over came in the form of early socialism and government financing and controlling higher education.

Which is the sort of mechanisms that fed into the rise of the Progressives in the USA.

And since American conservatism and Liberalism were both created as a response to growing state power this explains why these things have so much in common and have sort of melded together, sometimes uncomfortably, in the form of the modern Libertarian movement.