Bernie Sanders’s star is ris­ing. The New York Times pub­lished a sto­ry last week about his ​“rev­o­lu­tion­ary roots” in Ver­mont, not long after he drew a crowd of near­ly 10,000 peo­ple to a ral­ly in Madi­son, Wis­con­sin. The ​“Sanders surge,” as it’s been dubbed, is ​“becom­ing a big­ger prob­lem for Hillary Clin­ton,” accord­ing to The Hill. ​“Hillary’s Camp Wor­ries Over Sanders’ Surge in Polls,” as a News­max head­line put it.

Bernie is hardly calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat. But in our current context, his politics come off as downright radical. And it just might be a form of “socialism” that much of the country—more than 47 percent—is ready to embrace once again.

One per­son not wor­ry­ing about the Sanders surge, though, is Sen. Claire McCaskill (D‑MO), a Clin­ton ally who ​“unloaded” on Sanders recent­ly, accord­ing to Politi­co, claim­ing that he’s way too far out­side the main­stream to be elec­table. ​“I very rarely read in any cov­er­age of Bernie that he’s a social­ist,” she said.

Sen. McCaskill rarely reads any cov­er­age of Bernie Sanders, appar­ent­ly, since the Ver­mont senator’s self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as a social­ist reg­u­lar­ly comes up in cov­er­age of his cam­paign. And far from being a lia­bil­i­ty, as Sen. McCaskill sug­gests, it’s actu­al­ly a stroke of polit­i­cal genius.

It’s fair to doubt whether Sanders actu­al­ly qual­i­fies as a social­ist, as writ­ers across the polit­i­cal spec­trum have done. And it’s fair game to affirm that he’s a social­ist and call his phi­los­o­phy ​“fool­ish,” as a lib­er­tar­i­an pub­li­ca­tion has done. But doubt­ing that the media actu­al­ly dis­cuss­es his social­ism? It’s one of the pri­ma­ry rea­sons that pun­dits and jour­nal­ists write about him. A self-described social­ist with ​“rev­o­lu­tion­ary roots” mount­ing a bid for the pres­i­den­cy and draw­ing big crowds — that’s a story.

But whether they praise or con­demn him, pun­dits seem sure how this sto­ry will end. He’ll make some waves in the pri­maries, they argue, but no social­ist will be elect­ed president.

Well, maybe. A recent poll show­ing that 47 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion would vote for a social­ist was wide­ly por­trayed as poten­tial­ly good news for Sanders — even though, at 47 per­cent, social­ist ranked last of the 11 options. Athe­ists were the next low­est cat­e­go­ry, with 58 per­cent of respon­dents say­ing they would vote for one. The bar is appar­ent­ly so low for social­ists that it’s good news when near­ly half of the pop­u­la­tion would even think about vot­ing for you.

There is some rea­son for hope in the fact that, as with Oba­macare, peo­ple have fuzzy notions about what ​“social­ist” means — and sup­port many of the par­tic­u­lars, even if they reject the label. Sanders’s record, espe­cial­ly his time as may­or of Burling­ton in the 1980s, essen­tial­ly comes down to high­er tax­es on the wealthy and strong invest­ment in pro­grams and projects that have broad pub­lic sup­port — things like build­ing parks and schools and pro­vid­ing free or low-cost child care.

He cer­tain­ly is not a social­ist in the old-school sense. The con­ser­v­a­tive colum­nist George Will believes he isn’t one at all. Will har­rumphed recent­ly that Sanders’s self-pro­claimed social­ism is a ​“cha­rade” that wilts under scruti­ny. ​“In old­en days,” he wrote, ​“social­ism meant some­thing robust — gov­ern­ment own­er­ship of the means of pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and exchange. Then … the idea was dilut­ed to mean just gov­ern­ment own­er­ship of an economy’s ​‘com­mand­ing heights.’” For Will, Sanders’s claim on the label rep­re­sents the total cor­rup­tion of the word.

It’s true that, judged strict­ly by his vot­ing record, Sanders is far from a rad­i­cal. In fact, he isn’t even close to being the most pro­gres­sive mem­ber of the Sen­ate, accord­ing to Pro­gres­sive Punch, which ranks mem­bers of Con­gress by the pro­gres­sive qual­i­ty of their vot­ing record. Sanders’s over­all life­time score in the Sen­ate puts him at 19 — right in the mid­dle of the Democ­rats. (Eliz­a­beth War­ren ranks fourth. The oth­er sen­a­tor from Mass­a­chu­setts, Ed Markey, ranks first.) Sanders is just behind Jack Reed (RI) and Bob Menen­dez (NJ). He’s just ahead of Mar­tin Hein­rich (NM) and Dick Durbin (IL). He has been par­tic­u­lar­ly — and weird­ly — anti-pro­gres­sive on gun con­trol, once vot­ing in favor of allow­ing hand­guns in bag­gage on Amtrak trains.

Yet it’s clear that some­thing sets Sanders apart from Menen­dez, Durbin and the oth­er Democ­rats with sim­i­lar vot­ing records. Per­haps it’s that, by for­mal­ly keep­ing his dis­tance from lib­er­al­ism, Sanders forces fun­da­men­tal polit­i­cal and moral ques­tions onto the table.

His social­ism isn’t a ​“cha­rade.” It’s a provo­ca­tion, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly jar­ring and odd­ly famil­iar. And it’s polit­i­cal­ly bril­liant — which is per­haps why it irks con­ser­v­a­tives like George Will.

Five decades ago, Sanders’s agen­da was called New Deal lib­er­al­ism. But three decades of poli­cies that cut tax­es for the wealthy while pri­va­tiz­ing and shrink­ing the pub­lic realm have ren­dered the old labels and frame­works near­ly irrelevant.

As the ​“Sanders surge” gains momen­tum, his iden­ti­ty as a social­ist will be con­demned, cel­e­brat­ed and con­test­ed. But it won’t be ignored. The word pro­vokes the media to take note. And when they do, they might dis­cov­er that Sanders’s pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with equal­i­ty has deep roots in our past. Our pol­i­tics, at its finest, has long nur­tured the faith that near-term invest­ments in pub­lic works pay long-term div­i­dends, that the point of gov­ern­ment is to pur­sue the com­mon good and that inequal­i­ty is tox­ic to our democracy.

That faith doesn’t amount to rad­i­cal­ism or social­ism in the clas­sic sense, it’s true — Bernie is hard­ly call­ing for the dic­ta­tor­ship of the pro­le­tari­at. But in our cur­rent con­text, his pol­i­tics come off as down­right rad­i­cal. And it just might be a form of ​“social­ism” that much of the coun­try — more than 47 per­cent — is ready to embrace once again.