You shouldn't try to pigeonhole Catholicism into nebulous and shifting modern political categories of left and right. You also shouldn't present Catholicism as something equally malleable and shifting. That is not how Catholicism "works". Catholicism can develop, in the sense that the understanding of dogmas and doctrines and teachings in light of Tradition can become more fleshed out and better understood. Yes, church leaders can influence the Church, licitly or illicitly, with their opinions, but the dogmas and doctrines are not those opinions.

"But the Catholicism in ascendancy is no longer JFK and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi’s old-fashioned Northeastern urban and ethnic variety. Instead, a hard-edged, reactionary, pre–Vatican II strain has achieved unprecedented influence and power through the right-wing bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict; through political figures like Paul Ryan, Sam Brownback, Newt Gingrich, and Steve Bannon; and, most importantly, through their outright majority on the Supreme Court (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett). Leftist, social-justice Catholics like Agee no longer pose any danger to the CIA."

The "Catholicism" of Pelosi and Biden is hardly old-fashioned, and its substance not merely a matter of opinion. It is an ersatz, American Catholicism tailored to suit American liberal imperial sensibilities. They hold positions which are squarely opposed to Catholic teaching; this is not a matter of some kind of partisan disagreement. In a way, they are typical of many Catholics of their generation. Many Catholics were all too eager to become fully "respectable" Americans in the 20th century following years of American anti-Catholic prejudice, leading them to prioritize being American over being Catholic. If something being sold as "American" didn't agree with the faith, so much worse for the faith!

I also find the selection of Catholics curious. In some of those examples, if they pose no threat to the American empire, it isn't because they aren't liberation theology leftists (which is heretical, by the way[0]) per se. It's not like you can either embrace liberation theology or embrace American liberalism broadly understood. Indeed, authentic Catholics do pose a "threat", in spirit if not in any discernible action, to the ethos of American liberalism in the sense that while such Catholics may accept the status quo for now, they only do so out of prudence, not because they love American liberalism itself.

Re: Vatican II, the council was entirely licit. The tragedy was the confusion that resulted and the opportunism of some segments of the leadership and external actors in trying to remake the Church in their own image. If you believe that there is a doctrinal contradiction between the pre-Vatican II Church and the post-Vatican II Church, then you are a victim of the propaganda of these opportunists. To construe JPII and Benedict as at odds with their supposedly "progressive" predecessors is to believe a fiction. Even Francis, notorious for his ambiguous language and mediocre communiques, is given very selective treatment by all of the media who conveniently or sloppily ignore his affirmation of Church teaching. You only hear the sound bites that appear to play into the liberal project. If

So to lament the alleged loss of some mythical post-Vatican II leftist Church is to lament, in substance, the loss of illegitimate heterodoxy. If the Church is undergoing a course correction back to Tradition, then surely much of it is also the result of milquetoast liberal Catholics losing interest and leaving and boomer clergy dying off as well as an increase in interest in the Tradition among younger Catholics and Catholic converts. Also traditional Catholics have more children. You see the same thing happening in Judaism with conservative and orthodox Jews outbreeding the secularized majority.

FWIW, while JPII is well known for his anti-communist activity, with the Soviets gone, he did warn the world of the subtler evil of American liberal orthodoxy.

[0] https://www.catholic.com/qa/liberation-theology