Read: Bernie Sanders is the Democratic front-runner

For most of his career, Sanders—who identified as an independent but who caucused with Democrats—was treated like a curiosity and even a bit of a crazy uncle by Democrats, who considered the label socialist to be a smear.

No more.

The most prominent socialist in America, Sanders has gained a following, and in 2016, he challenged Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination. He eventually lost, of course, but not before winning roughly 13 million votes and 23 primaries and caucuses against Hillary Clinton, who got 17 million votes and won 34 contests. He electrified Democratic audiences in ways she could not, drawing a crowd of nearly 30,000 in Portland. The hashtag “Feel the Bern” exploded in popularity in 2016. Sanders particularly inspired the younger generation, drawing far more votes in the primaries from those under the age of 30 than did Clinton and Trump combined.

The 77-year-old Sanders is now a front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, with The New York Times declaring that his leftist ideas on health care, taxes, the environment, and other matters are defining the race.

“Those ideas that we talked about here in Iowa four years ago that seemed so radical at the time, remember that?” Sanders said during a return trip to the state earlier this month. “Shock of all shocks, those very same ideas are now supported not only by Democratic candidates for president but by Democratic candidates all across the board, from school board on up.”

“In 2016 Iowa helped begin the political revolution,” he continued. “Now as we move to 2020 our job is to complete that revolution.”

Read: Will the left go too far?

He’s not kidding, and he’s not alone. Among the freshman class of House Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—now the second-most-famous democratic socialist in America—is the unquestioned star among the base. According to Dan Balz of The Washington Post, Ocasio-Cortez is “the titular leader of a progressive grass-roots movement pushing the party to the left.” (The mere mention of her name elicits spontaneous applause on programs like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.)

Another prominent member of the freshman class of House Democrats, Ilhan Omar, recently dismissed former President Barack Obama—who not that long ago defined the progressive wing of the Democratic Party—as too right-wing. “We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished,” she said, “we want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

To more fully grasp the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party, it’s useful to run through some of the ideas that are now being seriously talked about and embraced by leading members of the party—ideas that together would be fiscally ruinous, invest massive and unwarranted trust in central planners, and weaken America’s security.