Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are introducing legislation to put a 15 percent interest rate cap on all consumer loans.

The legislation, called the Loan Shark Prevention Act, is a shot fired in the war between self-identified democratic-socialist lawmakers and the economic elite. With their national profile rising and their base growing, the former are seeking to make it clear to working-class people that they will fight tooth and nail to protect them from Wall Street predation.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s rollout video evolved into a sprawling conversation, touching on everything from healthcare to criminal justice. Their discussion dwelled on the resonance of a choice James Baldwin quote: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”