The progressive dream, of a benevolent state led by the best and the brightest caring for a grateful population unable to fend for itself, is dying a painful death. And it is starting to dawn on some of the smarter Democrats -- people like David Plouffe -- that they face an electoral Armageddon in November.

In an interview with Al Hunt broadcast aired last night on Bloomberg TV, former Obama adviser Plouffe:

…called the Democratic loss in Florida’s special congressional race “a screaming siren,” warning that the party needs to do more to motivate supporters in November’s nationwide elections.

But Plouffe cannot admit that Obamacare is the driver of public alienation:

“We have a turnout issue,” Plouffe said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “This is a screaming siren that the same problems that afflicted us” in 2010 when Democrats lost control of the House “could face us again.”

Plouffe just cannot get himself to admit the obvious: that Obamacare, the Great Progressive Project, sold with lies and bribes, has become the Waterloo of the Left. Young people in particular have become angry and cynical over being treated as cash cows, after being promised that the hip, cool president had their backs. The reason they have a turnout problem is that they have demonstrated thjeir willingness to lie and exploit young people with Obamacare.

Dana Milbank, a progressive columnist at the Washington Post, is able to go a step farther than Plouffe, but also cannot fully admit the folly of Obamacare, instead blaming the youth themselves:

An army of 15 million voters under 30 swept Obama past Hillary Clinton and John McCain and to the presidency in 2008. More than 12 million helped him return in 2012. But now his presidency is on the line — and the Obama youth are abandoning him in his hour of need.

The administration announced last week that only 1.08 million people ages 18 to 34 had signed up for Obamacare by the end of February, or about 25 percent of total enrollees. If the proportion doesn’t improve significantly, the result likely will be fatal for the Affordable Care Act. (snip)

What went wrong? The president and his aides failed to keep his youth movement engaged. But part of the problem also is the inability of the millennial generation to remain attached to a cause. The generation that brought Obama to power is connected online but has no loyalty to institutions — including, it turns out, the Obama White House.

In 2008, “the level of innovation and engagement in the election, especially the primaries, was amazing, but then the level of engaging them during the administration was extremely disappointing,” says Peter Levine, a Tufts University professor who specializes in youth civic involvement. “He had a potential army for legislative success and implementation, but the Obama administration did not do that. At a critical moment in the first term, they did not turn to them. . . . They got rapid youth demobilization.”

Those damn kids!

Still, at the very end of his column, Milbank admits that Obamacare is a bad deal, and that just might have something to do with the situation:

Asking them to pay money to join a health-care exchange, it seems, is too tall an order — even though the presidency they created depends on it.

If I were a better person, I would have compassion for these progressives going through stages of denial. But I am actually enjoying the spectacle of their reluctant recognition that their dream is actually a nightmare. As the old bumper sticker the greenie left used to favor had it: "Reality bats last."