the question is what defines accordance with the history and character of our countries. Not even the first Americans could agree proper. This is honestly one of the reasons why the political spectrum is a crap limpness test.
The interesting thing about conservatism -- as traditionally (and as such, genuinely) understood -- is that in many different contexts, it represents the same fundamental values... but advocates different
expressions of those values, which are suited to the specific circumstances. Thus, you get a wide community of shared values, but enriched by enormous diversity of (local) cultural forms.
Progressivism, on the other hand,
talks a lot about diversity, but without fail supports the imposition of generalism, universalism and centralism. Everything ends up the same.
Look at traditional architecture of cultures the wortld over. Countless different expressions of form, but you see the same (very human)
ideas working through all of them. Then witness modern architecture: it's the same everywhere, and it's all completely devoid of human scale and connection.
A traditional Dutch house and an English cottage don't look the same, they have different expressions of form. But when you compare them to some fascist monstrosity created by Le Corbusier, you realise that the two "conservative" structures are both expressions of the same
human idea, while Le Corbusier's building is all about
trampling on the human spirit.
(And this approach tells you far more about the essence of things than any political debate.)
There's a tacit implication that you really need to think things through before you make any serious changes.
We should embody the words of one G. K. Chesterton: "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
Likewise, we should never
put up a fence unless we know what effect that will have. Many political policies of this and the last century, unfortunately, did both. They tore down metaphorical fences that served a good purpose (which they didn't comprehend or appreciate), and they put up many new metaphorical fences that caused great harm (which they didn't understand or foresee).
Chesterton was also a proponent of localism, arguing that nearly all decisions should be made by the people directly involved, not by central planners unfamiliar with the specifics of a given situation. I quite agree.