Conservatism and reforms.

Politics is full of contradictions. The common assumption is that traditionalists want to maintain the status quo and, therefore, supporting them is the best way to guarantee that things will continue to be as in the past. Yet, as Halstead and Lind explain, perhaps reformism is a better way to implement changes in a non-intrusive manner while keeping the essence of what worked in the past:

Indeed, it is reformers rather than reactionaries who have a better claim to the label of conservative. Who are more conservative —those who would sacrifice the part to save the whole, or those who would prefer to lose the whole rather than to alter it in any way? The true patriots in American history have always understood that when conditions change it is necessary to pursue perennial goals by new means. Renovation is conservation by means of innovation.

(Halstead & Lind: p. 208)

It's, after all, Giuseppe Lampedusa's old statement, according to which "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change". The conservative approach, desperately hanging onto any and all tradition as if they are supposed to be considered good simply due to age, regardless of whatever else changed in society and people's minds, is, contrary to what some people believe, the best way to promote radical changes and revolutions. And these, for the most part, have never brought about anything worthwhile other than in the revolutionaries' feverish imagination.