Maybe it's the price of conserving what's been tested to be of value over time, and that makes him retrograde rather than radical, stuffy rather than hip. Big time celebrities are nearly always liberal or radical. There are exceptions, of course. But even Charlton Heston is not a lot of laughs. Tom Wolfe, one of the rare contemporary novelists with a conservative perspective, looks great in his Dixie dandy's white suits, but he never gets fussed over in print the way, say, Norman Mailer does.
Most contemporary artists push the envelope rather than build on tradition.
The same with poets. Of course, there are exceptions and like any generalizations that create polarities, such statements verge into oversimplification. But they contain nuggets of truth. That sounds a lot like H.L. Mencken, who ridiculed the Puritans as blue-noses afraid somewhere someone was having fun. Conservatives are not only getting serious attention, they're changing the debate.