You interpret these ways as by the book. And it is when it is by the book. We vote for two people every election. Our government has a life of its own. Any Democrat elected who is not a Progressive still ends up siding with Prog views or law by choice or coercion. Republicans have more people who have divergent views with the left leaning ones being sort of a cushion for Prog agendas at times. There are not that many conservatives and very little conservative legislation. We are moving leftward. And leftward quickly. We have radical judges making laws.There is huge difference between constitutionalists and conservatives.
A constitutionalist is one who wants to limit the federal government jurisdiction that originally described by the constitution. Like there would then be no DEA, because that is state and local jurisdiction, not federal.
But a constitutionalist would agree that the point of the bill of rights is also to enshrine individual rights and also implies their protection from abuses by states and municipalities. So a constitutionalist would be against any gun control law, including state or local. While conservatives were all in favor of gun control laws, like the 1934 and 1986 federal gun control laws. Conservatives wanted to keep Blacks, immigrants, and union organizers disarmed, so they would be more easily intimidated. A conservative wants to prevent change, so would want to maintain slavery, while a constitutionalist would use court interpretations of the Bill of Rights and state laws, to end slavery as abusive of inherent individual rights.
The need for the terms "democratic socialist" is obvious. Without democracy, obviously socialism is impossible. The point of socialism is to allow collaborative, communal, and cooperative ventures. And obviously that can't happen unless there is a political structure to keep it fair. And that requires the oversight of the people involves, the demos.
Just like if you do not have democracy, capitalism turns into feudalism, so does socialism. Democracy is essential to any system, in order to prevent it from becoming authoritarian and for only an elite few.