News coverage (even in the conservative media) on the rise of Bernie Sanders has marveled at what this means for the Democratic Party's lurch toward being a “socialist” party, but that’s not the greatest consequence of his campaign’s success.

Sanders’s status as the “socialist” candidate is far less terrifying than what he really is: the social justice candidate.

Sanders cemented that legacy when he declared at the New Hampshire debate this month, “We have a racist society from top to bottom impacting healthcare, housing, criminal justice, education — you name it.”

That more than anything else is the ideology governing the base of the Democratic Party. And though Sanders’s rivals tried like hell to compete for support by acknowledging the plight of gay people, immigrants, people of color, transgender people, and women (particularly those who need abortions), Sanders has outdone them all.

As described in my new book, Privileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People, the Democratic 2020 primary was, from the beginning, less a nominating contest and more of a competition to see who could harness the power of America’s new class of aggrieved, oppressed, and victimized voters who now make up the party’s foundation.

Earning their support would be done through a series of privilege self-checking and acknowledging these people’s incurable pain and, most fun, the occasional modern-day struggle session — wherein a candidate endures public humiliation without retort.

It's why Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made sure to tell a transgender boy that she would need his approval when, as president, it came time to select an education secretary.

It’s why California Rep. Eric Swalwell, when he was still running, said that that as "a white man," he’s fully aware that he “can't speak to someone else's experience.” Therefore, he promised in advance that he would select a woman as his vice president.

It’s why Beto O’Rourke appeared before the dejected women of ABC’s The View to debase himself and apologize for his own “privilege.” “There are things that I have been privileged to do in my life that others cannot,” O’Rourke said. He dutifully added that “the systematic, foundational discrimination that we have in this country in every aspect of life is something that I have not experienced in my lifetime, and I’ve had advantages that others cannot enjoy.”

O’Rourke was then asked on the show about the criticism (from liberals) he received for saying that he only “sometimes” helped his wife physically care for their children. “Absolutely, and I deserved it,” he pleaded. To put a bow on it all, O’Rourke acknowledged he has his “work cut out” for him in order “to be a better person and ensure that I’m more mindful to the experiences that others have had different than the experiences that I’ve had.”

Sanders has compensated for his own gender and race-related shortcomings by calling everything about America racist.

He has called the justice system "broken and racist."

His campaign website says that “In order to transform this country into a nation that affirms the value of its people of color, we must address the five central types of violence waged against black, brown and indigenous Americans: physical, political, legal, economic and environmental.”

He called former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-crime stop-and-frisk policy racist.

And of course, he has called President Trump “a racist and a bigot.” To be sure, he followed up by saying, “I wish I did not have to say it.” But of course, he knew he had to. The social justice party demands it. And Sanders's pledge to guarantee that nearly everything be free, including higher education, health insurance, and child care, is all in the name of social equality, which has little to do with economics and more to do with atoning for any discrepancies that can be tied back to race, gender, and sexuality.

We’re all watching the Democratic Party inch ever closer toward nominating a self-described socialist. But that’s almost nothing when you consider it might be about to nominate its first candidate capitalizing on the social justice movement.