I don't disagree about where social progress comes from, but until recently conservatives didn't conceptualize themselves as being in some kind of culture war that required them to move the goalposts quite so aggressively and at all costs.

They just always conveniently thought that the progressiveness of their childhood was the "correct" amount of progressiveness. And I do think on the whole they thought they valued democracy.

But the intense cognitive dissonance of the current MAGA movement that pins "the left" as "the real racists" and "the real sexists" didn't really exist. And they had some sense that completely making up BS lies was not desirable.

I guess my point is that it's still helpful to see things as a continuity and that there might be different ways people think about themselves if they identify as being conservative.