I'd say about 75% of US voters are liberal and also that about 75% of US voters are conservative because in real life these are not mutually exclusive terms. Only political fanatics obsessed with party in-fighting think that you can only be one or the other, regular folk are quite comfortable being both at the same time with no discomfort at all.
The liberal tradition extends from Locke to Jefferson to Martin Luther King Jr to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and stresses (1) individual liberty, (2) free markets, (3) the potential worth and value of each person. The antithesis to the liberal is the totalitarian. Today, the fashionable term for totalitarian is "progressive": we know what's best for you better than you know yourself; we must control every aspect of your life for your own good.
Conservative tradition runs from Burke to Franklin and the drafters of the Constitution to John Paul II and stresses (1) respect the wisdom of your elders, (2) individual responsibility and initiative, and (3) all human beings are fallible, hence the need for separation of powers and checks and balances. The antithesis to the conservative is the radical. As Karl Marx might say, "'Tradition' is merely a tool used by those in power to oppress the rest of us; government is a tool of the elite used to keep the masses in check." If Karl Marx were alive today, he'd be an ardent supporter of the Tea Party; he understood with perfect clarity that no government "cares" about regular people, the only thing that people in government care about is remaining in power.
The etymology of "liberal" is from "liberty."
Interestingly, "conservation" and "conservative" have the same etymology. Many sound environmental policies come from hunters and fishers! For example; with the elimination of natural predators, ungulates would over-breed, over-graze, and then have huge death rates due to the resulting food shortages; hence the use of Dept of Conservation personnel to survey game populations and determine how many hunting permits to issue each year, in order to maintain a stable and healthy ungulate population.
This potent combination of liberal AND conservative explains the domestic appeal of Reagan's political coalition, and the astounding success that Reagan / Thatcher / John Paul II had in winning the Cold War: they made liberty and freedom such a strong moral issue that the Communist leaders came to quail at the prospect of suppressing their own people by violent force. By a direct appeal to both the liberal and the conservative tradition they made an enormously effective force.
Ironically, the reason that Reagan decided to win the Cold War was because, when he became President, he became responsible for our nuclear arsenal. He found the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction to be morally repugnant, not to mention crazy as well. It was his principled rejection of M.A.D. that "forced" him to find another way to end the stalemate.
Now I realize that Reagan was no saint and there are lots of grounds from which to criticize him; at the same time, there IS a widespread consensus among historians (they hold a vote every ten years or so on the greatest presidents, and of course Washington is always # 1, and deservedly so) that Reagan is one of the five best Presidents we've had. So don't argue with me, go out and argue with them.
For those of you too young to remember the 1970s, you have no idea how much he changed the mood and the course of our nation. There's a lot of revisionist history going around these days in which people rewrite what happened after the fact in order retroactively to suit a prevailing present-day narrative, even though said narrative did not even exist at the time the original events were occuring.
