I’ll agree that the Democrats are a conservative party. There’s a tiny section of it that consists of a handful of actual left wingers and their names come up in the press because they’re so unique and out of step with the general DC zeitgeist.
At the same time, I think the point the article is trying to make – that the Democrats at least are trying in their conservative way to do something that benefits some segment of the population some of the time, while the Republicans are simply and unapologetically trying to get their hands on whatever they can steal, and if the empire crumbles while they’re doing it then oh well – is something that should be said a lot more often in the mainstream press. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could argue with a straight face that it’s not true.