This article fails to answer the question in the title. All it offers are a few vague gestures to culture war topics after a lengthy nostalgic story without actually walking the reader through the claimed gap between that era and the modern magazine. Then it concludes with a gesture at "God," (which one?) reminding me of old TV shows where the cast would awkwardly stare up at an ascending camera while babbling about god without any context for it.
A long, long time ago I asked a skilled, battle-tested writerly friend what my own writing was missing. The response: "examples"
That's what this is sorely lacking.