Whither Conservatism

Mike Pence wants to revive conservatism. After an electoral tsunami Republicans are doing some soul searching, the typical rresponse. We'll assume they have souls but what we are seeing is the essence of ideological rubble, where MAGA, Republican and conservative get mashed into a totally incoherent worldview. The "intellectuals" mouth slogans like free markets and liberty and security yada yada while the people who put signs up in their yards worry about invaders and cultural Marxism and gun rights. Abortion. Girls sports. And then you throw in a charismatic comedian with no filters and an attention economy of TicToc and Twitch. This is not to say things are all that much better on the Left or that ideology was totally coherent in some lost Golden Age. But at least people tried to think about Capital and Labor. Now people will look at the results from Tuesday's elections and say conservatism lost- but what exactly won? Liberalism? Third Way Centrism? Progressivism? Again, ideological rubble. I see Democratic Party pundits saying the first order of business is to "fix markets". In this reductive thinking, you can call a repairman to fix something that is broken with the economy and then we can carry on. Capitalist realism demands that they imagine nothing outside of markets. Healthcare markets, environmental services markets, food markets, housing markets, etc... None of them can be "fixed" because they aren't broken, they are working precisley as designed, to funnel wealth to the few. The only dream on the Left is for a New New Deal, a command economy run by benevolent overlords. I wouldn't hold my breath. Humanity is on the downslope and the hangover has begun. Untold trillions in debt. Running out of cheap energy. Fighting over the scraps. A conservative might want to conserve, but that's not how it works. Socialists are making electoral inroads but whither socialism?