Bronx-born, New York City congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has broken through the dull haze of complacency that has characterized Democratic Party politics for decades. She delivers “A message from the future,” where massive social investment has fixed failing public infrastructure and transformed the economy; she leverages her up-from-the-people bona fides (“I just got health insurance a month ago”) to excoriate the elite accoutrements of Congress and the broader political system; she uses Twitter and Instagram to break down the barrier between representative and represented, serving up doses of political education and withering bon mots alike.

But far from a new style, her approach is about as old as the original democratic socialist party: the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Long shots of history, these early socialists became the world’s first and ultimately largest mass political party. They mobilized disenfranchised voters, articulated unconventional policy ideas, made innovative use of new media, and most of all, used their bully pulpits to denounce and expose the depredations of capitalism. The cries from these orphans and stepchildren of modernity (“free love,” “women and girls out of the shadows”) offered workers and their families a vision of a world free of grinding poverty and stunted dreams.

The activists and parliamentarians of the SPD came from modest backgrounds, with little formal education. Their parliament, the Reichstag, stood more for the idea of democracy than its reality, and despite support from a broad swath of the German working class, the party had no influence over the formation of government. Figuratively flipping the building on its head, they transformed the Reichstag into a forum to go toe to toe with the powerful, giving workers a sense of being avenged and providing a model of courage through a canny strategy of political education, media distribution, and biting speeches.