"The energy in the 2020 Democratic campaign has been coming from the left. Candidates are pushing Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, a wealth tax and other ideas that are more progressive than anything a recent Democratic nominee has favored. Much of this shift — which has been focused on economic policy — is smart. Republicans may cry socialism, and affluent centrists may not love it. But the American public leans decidedly left on economics. A clear majority favors higher taxes on the rich, a higher minimum wage and expanded government health insurance. After four decades of slow-growing living standards, people want change. And yet there are also risks in the Democrats’ move to the left — risks that the sillier criticisms of the party’s new progressivism sometimes obscure."