So what's the deal with more and more political candidates, especially millennials, suddenly openly referring to themselves as 'Socialists?'
U.T. Austin American government professor Eric McDaniel has studied this trend, and he tells 1200 WOAI news its the result of an economy which is perceived by many people under forty as being stacked against them.
He points out that the generation born after 1985 is the first since World War Two that will not earn more than their parents.
"A lot of this is linked to the belief that capitalism has failed," he said. "Specifically if you look at what is going on with corporations, specifically, the wealth gap, and the belief that it is easier to stay rich than to become rich."
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders pushed 'socialism' into the mainstream with his unsuccessful run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016, and the surprise victory of New York Congressional candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in a Democratic primary earlier this year has fired up self-described 'socialists.'
Dozens of federal, state, and local candidates are running for office today by flouting the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America, a designation which would have been political suicide twenty years ago.
"We think classically that if you work really hard you will become wealthy, and if you make bad decision you will become poor," McDaniel said. "But the evidence is growing that it actually now takes three or four generations to work out of poverty."
'Democratic socialists' generally support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, taxpayer funded college tuition, 'Medicare for all,' and a trendy new talking point among Democratic Socialists, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But many Democratic Socialists have become the bane of mainstream Democrats, much like the Tea Party was a nightmare for mainstream Republicans in the early part of this decade.
Many Democratic Socialists call each other 'comrade,' and wear buttons featuring Communist icons like Karl Marx, moving them further from mainstream Democrat thinking.
McDaniel says this sudden acceptance of 'socialism' won't necessary be a political windfall for the Democrats.
He points out that many of the same attitudes about the unfair nature of today's economy and the wealthy soaring while the working class is stuck also helped propel the rise of President Trump in 2016.