So wrote center-left columnist Ruy Teixeira yesterday at the Free Press, in what reads like a post-mortem for after the election. Maybe we should call it a ... pre-mortem? Or should we wait to see whether the body is twitching first?

We don't need to wait, Teixeira argues, because Democrat messaging in this cycle already proves that the Left knows their agenda is dead. Not just mostly dead, but in the go-through-its-pockets-for-loose-change stage. And it didn't take long to strangle it to death, either -- just three years of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration:

Progressives thought they had ripped the Overton window wide open and it remained only to push the voters through it. In their view, that wouldn’t be too hard since these were great ideas, and voters, at least the non-deplorable ones, were thirsty for a bold new approach to America’s problems.

In reality, a lot of these ideas were pretty terrible and most voters, outside the precincts of the progressive left itself, were never very interested in them. That was true from the get-go, but now the backlash against these ideas is strong enough that it can’t be ignored. As a result, politics is adjusting and the progressive moment is well and truly over.

Astute observers on the left acknowledge this, albeit with an undertone of sadness.

We'll get back to the sadness in a moment. Teixeira argues that progressives got more practical as their terrible ideas got put into practice, which might be true of some progressives who were more practical than ideological in the first place. The problem with Teixeira's declaration of death starts with the agenda items that he calls terrible, especially in the way Teixeira frames them. 

And by that, I mean Teixeira makes the mistake of framing them honestly:

1. Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea, and voters hate it.

2. Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was a terrible idea, and voters hate it.

3. Insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics was a terrible idea, and voters hate it. 

4. Telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea, and voters hate it.

I'll let people read Teixeira's recounting of these issues for themselves. He does a good job of sustaining his argument, but the problem isn't so much that the ideas are terrible. They are terrible, which is obvious from the up-front and accurate description Teixeira uses for each of them. In fact, no one in their right mind would have supported an agenda like this.

However, that isn't the agenda progressives advanced. They called each of these something very different when selling it to voters,  which explains why it took electing a progressive administration for people to realize how terrible these ideas actually are.

Allow me to translate this into ProgressiveSpeak:

1. Welcoming Migrant Workers Into Our Economy 

2. Reforming the Police and De-Colonizing the Justice System 

3. Balancing Public Policy to Create Equity and Erasing the Legacy of Bigotry

4. Saving the Planet From Global Warming and Capitalist Exploitation

Ask any non-activist progressive to assess Teixeira's list, and almost every single one of them would reject that agenda. But ask any non-activist or activist progressive about the agenda as progressives sell it, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that it still gets enormous support. Never mind that these are the exact same policy sets; the spin is what sells it, and the aspirational intent to Change The World Into A Better Place By Any Means Necessary.

Needless to say, I remain skeptical that this impulse has been quashed at all, at least among progressive advocates and the minimally educated. 

That brings us to "what comes next," as Teixeira wonders. He's correct that Kamala Harris is a terrible messenger for any new approach, but not very clear on why. Harris doesn't have a philosophy or guiding principles. She wants power and will do and say anything to get it. Harris has abandoned nearly every single position she ever took before July 21 of this year, and erupts in incoherence whenever she's asked to explain those changes or even to confirm them. She can't even articulate what she might do different from the past four years, let alone a vision for a new path forward for the Left besides anarcho-nihilism. 

So "what's next" won't come from Harris. In fact, I doubt there will be a "what's next," because there's no market for a replacement on the Left, especially with the socialists and Marxists who never admit failure at all. In their minds, failure of socialism only indicates that they didn't socialism/communism hard enough the first time, but the application of more force will do the trick the next time. 

This philosophy and agenda has died in various guises and forms over the past half-century. Unfortunately, it keeps springing back to life under new labels and new management. One election failure won't keep the zombie from digging itself out of the grave ... and we don't even know for sure yet that Harris will lose. Don't get cocky.