Inspiring the next generation of radical campaigners—whether they identify as democratic socialists, as Sanders does, or simply as advocates for transformative change—matters now. And it will matter for decades to come.

The most valuable political movements are about ideas, not personalities. But candidates help us to recognize the power of ideas in a political context; they spark our imagination. Even when they do not win, they suggest a possibility that change will come. Conservatives, inspired by Barry Goldwater’s 1964 bid, elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. Progressives, inspired by Jesse Jackson’s 1988 “Rainbow Coalition” campaign, and Howard Dean’s run in 2004, dared to dream that Barack Obama could go all the way in 2008.

I’ve covered politics for a long time. Whenever I meet a new candidate, a new elected official, I ask them where they got started politically. Years ago, for Democrats, the standard reference point was John F. Kennedy’s “A Time for Greatness” presidential campaign of 1960. Then it was the “Get Clean for Gene” McCarthy campaign of 1968, and Bobby Kennedy’s run of the same year, and George McGovern’s of 1972. Eventually, it was Gary Hart’s 1984 campaign and Jackson’s run in 1988.

More recently, when my colleague Sophia Steinert-Evoy and I produced a podcast, Next Left, for The Nation, we focused on the rising stars of American politics—newly elected city-council members in Chicago and Austin, legislators in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, judges and prosecutors in Houston and San Francisco. We were struck by how frequently the officials we spoke with referenced the 2016 Sanders campaign as a personal and political touchstone. When I asked Chicago City Council member Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez about running and winning in 2019 as a democratic socialist, she immediately credited Sanders for popularizing the ideology that had for so long been dismissed by political and media elites. “I think that Bernie was successful in putting that out there, and then that opened the path for many of us to be able to run for office.” So many of the people we talked with said similar things that Sophia and I decided to finish the series with Sanders himself.

That interview took place in November of last year. The senator and I began by discussing the enthusiastic endorsements he had just received from a trio of Democratic U.S. representatives who had all been elected in 2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. Then I mentioned that like those members of Congress, the young elected officials we had talked with spoke of the inspiration they took from his first presidential bid.

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“During 2016,” he responded, “I think there was not a speech that I gave which did not say to the young people, to the people who were there, to working people who were there: Get involved in the political process; run for office, whether it is school board, legislature, city council, Congress, whatever it may be.”