The Sanders campaign has certainly sharpened the contradictions, hasn’t it? It’s been very clarifying to see Hillary Clinton and her surrogates running against single-payer health care and free college, with intellectual cover coming from Paul Krugman and Vox.

Expectations, having been systematically beaten down for thirty-five years, must be beaten down further, whether it’s Clinton saying that to go to college one needs some “skin in the game,” or Representative John Lewis reminding us that nothing is free in America. A challenge from the left has forced centrist Democrats to reveal themselves as proud capitalist tools.

Latest to step up is Paul Starr, co-founder of the American Prospect. Normally the dull embodiment of tepid liberalism, Starr has unleashed a redbaiting philippic — a frothing one, even, by his standards — aimed at Bernie Sanders.