Last Wednesday, Bernie Sanders passionately argued for a “democratic socialist” United States. Sanders’s clear arguments for a complete transformation of the country showed why the mainstream media and the leadership of the Democratic Party have tried to marginalize his electrifying presidential campaign.

In the course of a single speech, Sanders demonstrated the existential threat he poses to the political status quo in the United States by exposing the roots of the hardship and deprivation that roil wide swaths of the country. He named capitalism as the culprit and democratic socialism as a solution. What a breathtaking turn of events.

Sanders’s address bowled through the diminished expectations of twenty-first century liberalism and the cruelty of right-wing demagoguery. In doing so, he provided a powerful counter-narrative to the entire political establishment, which has situated blame any and everywhere for the social and economic catastrophe that is unfolding in working-class and poor communities — except the economic system undergirding it all.