Honestly feel this way. He died not too long after the Bernie 2020 campaign ended and when Covid was still in full swing.
Honestly in a way he was lucky because he didn’t get to see all the fucking bullshit that came later (e.g. Biden, “the pandemic is over jack!”, Gaza, etc.).
But his death kind of symbolized the start of the “blackpill” era for lack of a better term.
If by the left you mean the collective optimism of electoral twitter leftists then sure. Idk I was one of them but I’ve spent the time since then retooling my understanding of history and the material base of the society in which I live. The concepts of imperialist exploitation and the US being a settler country were just alien to my understanding of the world in 2020 when I wanted to tax the rich to get Canada-style healthcare.