Which U.S. is the author speaking of? Certainly not the one I live in.
As far as I can tell, conservatives in America stand for bigger government (but not quite as big as the RATS want), higher taxes (but not quite as high as the Rats want), more regulation (but not quite as much as the RATS want), devaluation of the currency (how else will the "war on terrorism" be paid for), using the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments as toilet paper, and liberty for all (except when carying a nail file on an airliner).
By the 1980s, all but the most slow-witted or dense could see that socialism and communism were failures.
True, their is no longer any excuse for a moral person to embrace socialism.