None of this should be difficult to celebrate. An economy in which private property is protected, private enterprise is rewarded, markets set prices and profits provide incentives will, over time, generate more wealth, innovation and charity — and distribute each far more widely — than any form of central planning.

This is not a theory. It’s as true in Nordic countries like Denmark (often mislabeled “socialist”) as it is in hyper-capitalist Singapore. It’s the empirically verifiable conclusion from the 20th century’s bitter contest between capitalist and socialist states. It’s not a race we should have to run twice.

Nor should it be hard for someone like Hickenlooper to acknowledge as much — while also insisting on the distinction between unrestrained and regulated capitalism, market prices and moral values. One of the reasons why the right-wing charge of “socialism” against the Democratic Party rarely stuck was that it was generally untrue. To smooth the edges of capitalism, even to save it from itself, doesn’t mean to disdain and disavow it.

There’s a difference between taming a horse and shooting it.

Until about, oh, a year ago, few Democrats would have disagreed. Not anymore. Moderate Democrats are by no means an endangered species, but increasingly they act like a hunted one. Watching Hickenlooper, you could read his mind as if it were a chyron at the foot of the screen. Don’t say “proud capitalist,” John. Don’t say it. Twitter will kill me if I do. Death by Twitter mob — or pre-emptive surrender to it — is how politics is largely conducted these days.

Is this good politics? I doubt it. As Geoffrey Kabaservice noted in the Guardian last November, “Nearly all of the Democrats who flipped the seats of moderate Republicans are themselves moderate. Few support the socialist agenda of Senator Bernie Sanders.” Progressive favorites like Andrew Gillum lost his race against a weak Republican opponent. And Joe Biden tops most Democratic primary polls by a wide margin.