Capitalism with a human face.

Bernie has indeed been a transformative figure.

He has made the Democratic Party more insistent on furthering progressive reforms that are mostly of the sort that have lived in the hearts of progressives since TR's run of 1912, and in the hearts of liberals since the New Deal.

The broad masses of the Democratic Party are in love with his and AOC's agenda, though the bulk of the party's office holders have not yet entirely embraced it.

But he did not, will not, and has not even tried to transform the Democratic Party into a rerun of the old Socialist Party USA.

About that Douthat is wrong.

Bernie Sanders, Socialism’s Reagan?

Bernie Sanders' hero is Gene Debs, the SP candidate of 1912, and not TR and not Wilson.

And despite his dishonest reticence his socialism is the real thing, public or collective ownership of the means of production, and his hatred of capitalism is real, too.

Probably, AOC is the same way, though her heroes are likely more Latin American that his.

All the same, the AOC/Bernie agenda is not about abolishing capitalism in America, and though it is very widely popular among Democrats those same Democrats are no more interested in the abolition of capitalism than Howard Schultz or Michael Bloomberg.

But despite the dishonesty of Bernie and of many of his supporters, most Americans already know what socialism really is, and the further we get into the campaign the more the Republicans will gladly inform those who don't yet actually get it.

And the more Americans who get it, the more unpopular with actual voters the word "socialism" will be.

So what we Democrats need is a Democratic nominee who embraces the AOC/Bernie agenda without embracing either socialism or "socialism".

Because what Democrats and a whole lot of other people actually want is not socialism but capitalism with a human face.

Of course, if Bernie is the nominee I will absolutely vote for him.

But I would rather someone else carried our water.

Someone who knows better than to honestly campaign for that agenda while campaigning to dishonestly rehabilitate socialism by lying about both it and "socialism".

That is a mug's game and does no good while playing into the hands of lying Republicans who always tell the same lies Trump and the White House and even Douthat are already telling.