This is a pretty weird article given how much party politics changed in the 1970s. Membership between the two parties shuffled in response to civil rights and other legislation in the 1960s. The reconstituted Republican party invented new extreme positions on stuff like abortion and gun rights. The shift toward ultra-low taxation and minimal government moved out of the fringe and became Republican mainstream with Reagan in the 1980s. At the same time the Democratic party reacted against all that while slowly becoming more inclusive of various underprivileged groups.

I feel like the article plays into and tries to reinforce the idea that Republican conservatives represent good old-fashioned American values, but both parties today would be almost incomprehensible to most voters from the 1960s. I don't think it really matters how far voters in either party have drifted from positions staked out by party operatives between the 1970s and 1990s.