I feel like "conservatism" has lost all rationality. I do get that it's totally possible that "not rocking the boat" could be a good solution to society's progress for some niches but 99% of the time it's absolutely irational.

In fact, most conservative issues like "traditional family unit", "gun freedom" are better approached through progressive frame like incentives to celebrate local culture and protecting human rights like rights to self defence - these are fundamentally progressive thoughts that actually solve the issue in a real meaningful way rather than just hiding behind in-action.

I really try to understand conservatism as a thought movement but there seems to be no actual thought behind it. I genuinely don't get it.

So conservativism became liberalism?

No, sorry. There are still conservatives in the world, mostly in Europe, mostly where monarchs are still in place like the UK. Conservatism is alive and well with its original meaning. Yes it has evolved. No it hasn't evolved into its direct contradiction.

Only in America did some liberals decide to label themselves conservative as a way of creating an openly contradictory position from which to manage the electorate. Their PR is phenomenal because they claim to not be liberal but argue for private property, individual freedom, unregulated markets, and small government. Literally the definition of liberalism, but somehow, not liberals!

It boggles the fucking mind.

Nope. Sorry. That's not what happened.

The American definition of conservatism developed as a unique synthesis of classical liberal principles (limited government, individual liberty, free markets) and traditionalist social values, primarily emerging as a self-conscious political movement in the mid-20th century in opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the perceived threat of communism

It's literally completely artificial PR from the political-business elite and has absolutely nothing to do with organic evolution of language. Conservatism is the US is literally liberalism. The word Conservative still means monarchist in the rest of the Anglo world, because the rest of the Anglo world is still deeply connected to their Commonwealth history.

In the US, red scare propagandists hand in hand with business elite who wanted to maximize profits and destroy worker rights took an existing term and defined it with Orwellian doublespeak, literally saying "we're not liberals" when very obviously to everyone educated in politics they absolutely were liberals and still are.