Islamism (I am not including “jihadism”) has become little more than the Muslim version of the Christian Right Wing parties in the West; except with even fewer articulated policy positions. It is largely status quo politics with an extra emphasis on morality and religious references in their rhetoric.
It has become a platform from which ambitious but mostly unqualified men can launch their aspiring political careers with the support of a gullible , religious, but often politically uneducated niche constituency. They have no policy platforms and their supporters do not care.
If you talk about establishing an Islamic state without providing any definition or any explanation of actual “Islamic” policies ; you are regarded as a mainstream and credible Islamist. But if you talk only about promoting policies that adhere to the Shari’ah, to Islamic principles, and serve the common welfare of the people; while not also calling for the overthrow of the government; you are regarded as secular and beyond the pale of Islamism.
If this remains to be the case, the future of Islamism looks both bleak and brief.