THE PROGRESSIVE’S LAMENT: Progressives Mourn Their Failure to Exploit this Crisis.

The sense that this once-in-a-century nightmare is really one big missed opportunity is pervasive among progressives in Washington, too. For those on the farthest end of the liberal spectrum in Congress, the pandemic has provided them with “a sense of hope,” according to Politico. “They see a federal government finally willing to spend massive sums on long-neglected health and social programs, and say it’s time to push for policies that would otherwise never stand a chance of a floor vote,” the report read.

This charitable description of a rather perverse reaction to an event that is responsible for death, precarity, and hardship on an unimaginable scale is the kind of dispensation conservatives can only fantasize about. The right is, however, better off without this kind of encouragement.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is informed in this dispatch that, despite their “policy-savvy” senior leadership and the star power exhibited by new members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “progressives have often struggled to successfully wield their influence to shape legislation.” Thus, the Democrats’ left flank is asked only to ponder why their adversaries are so effective rather than the unthinkable notion that their demands are unrealistic and undesirable.

Meanwhile, everyday American leftists are experiencing their version of Tom Wolfe’s “The Great Relearning” as part of what Steve Hayward calls “The Great Reset:”

Ms. Singer, who prided herself on producing no trash that needed to be landfilled, stocked her kitchen with packaged food that would last for weeks. “I sacrificed my values and bought items in plastic. Lots of it.” She also learned a lesson: “I have many values and sometimes, as circumstances change, one of those values may take priority above another.”

“Funny how that happens when things get real,” Hayward adds.