Late 20th-century conservatism was still grounded in the classically liberal tradition. But that tradition requires sincere discourse, which is no longer possible in the present age because it is vastly easier to manufacture and disseminate lies than it is to discover and communicate the truth.
One could absorb the lessons of Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, etc., and still decide that our finite, biased minds, limited as they are, are still the best tools we have to search for meaning. That is called Critical Realism. But our culture chose differently. We chose nihilism. Raw power.
The first awakening comes when you realize how full of lies the Right is. The final awakening comes when you realize The Atlantic lies just as much as Fox News does, only with more sophisticated and clever lies. The culture is dead.
I wish the center could hold and liberal democracy could survive, but hardly anybody here believes in it. It’s just a liturgy we recite. One side believes in herrenvolk democracy. The other side doesn’t believe in much of anything besides paying lip service to the latest moral fads in order to protect its own wealth and status.