Carroll O’Connor and the liberal writers believed they were creating a hateful, blue collar bigot. Sadly, the audience identified with Archie Bunker’s complaints and he became a folk hero.
Unintended consequences.
Unintended political prophet?
You are right, the same thing that happened with Michael J. Fox and Family Ties. Like Archie Bunker, Alex as portrayed by Fox became the hero.
Rob Reiner was the intended star of All in the Family and Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter Birney were the intended stars of Family Ties - you know - as the enlightened liberals having to put up with Archie Bunker or Alex P. Keaton. Unintended consequences indeed, except that all the idiot liberals got rich due to their huge miscalculation. I think Norman Lear produced both.