Bernie Sanders’s latest defense of democratic socialism was a frontal assault on many of the cliches that are held to govern American politics. Its very title — “How Democratic Socialism Is the Only Way to Defeat Oligarchy and Authoritarianism” — elicited incomprehension and laughter from his Democratic primary competitors. Colorado senator Michael Bennet, one of the many indistinguishable mediocrities crowding the Democratic field, told a reporter, “I don’t think the American people even know what that means . . . Nobody in my town halls talks about democratic socialism versus oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

While it’s always edifying to see a politician talk about what his voters don’t understand, Bennet would have done well to get past the title of Sanders’s speech, and listen to its actual content. The core of the address dealt with questions most voters understand all too well — medical debt, skyrocketing housing costs, overwork, and jobs that literally steal the lives of the poor.

What was most notable about Sanders’s discussion of these issues, however, was how he framed them. All of these injustices of capitalism, he argued, were infringements on people’s freedom.