Point is, the sophistry is hot now. I just Googled “paranoid style Tea Party” and got this from NY Times, March 10, 2010:
“NEW YORK — The name Richard Hofstadter has been summoned up a lot lately in liberal opinion columns and the blogosphere as an eloquent and intellectually impeccable explanation for political developments like the Tea Party movement, the stardom of Sarah Palin, and the claim on right-wing talk radio that Barack Obama is a “socialist,” maybe even a “bolshevik” leading America to ruin....”
“I don’t think these concepts have worn very well,” Mr. Foner, once a student of Mr. Hofstadter’s, said. “Like anybody, Hofstadter was a product of a particular historical experience, and I don’t think he was putting forward a theory for all of American politics.”
Foner has his own reasons for putting Hofstadter down -- Foner's an old lefty with CP ties in the family who found Hofstadter too elitist and too contemptuous of populism. But he does have a point.
When somebody cites Hofstadter -- and only Hofstadter without qualifications -- to explain some current political phenomenon either they're lazy or they haven't kept up or they're looking more to attack and condemn rather than to understand. That comes through in the article you cited.
Hofstadter was very much a product of his time. With somebody dead that long, we can try to figure out why he thought as he did and what his era made of him, rather than take him for our hero or villain.