evidence: Ocasio-Cortez represents one vision of the Democratic Party’s future. She’s a young Hispanic woman, three cornerstones of the party’s electoral coalition. She’s a democratic socialist at a time when confidence in capitalism is declining, especially among progressive millennials. The issues she ran on—a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, abolishing ICE—are animating a new generation of Democrats. She’s a political phenomenon: part activist, part legislator, arguably the best storyteller in the party since Barack Obama and perhaps the only Democrat right now with the star power to challenge President Donald Trump’s. [...] That’s why young Americans have become increasingly attracted to democratic socialism, which aims to build a stronger social safety net through democratic elections. After Sanders’ rise in the 2016 Democratic primaries, membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) soared from fewer than 10,000 members in early 2016 to more than 55,000 by 2019. A 2018 Harvard poll found that 39% of young Americans favor democratic socialism, and even young Americans who don’t identify with the movement overwhelmingly support ideas like Medicare for All, tuition-free public college and a Green New Deal. "Every year, young people are ticking a couple points more left," says John Della Volpe of the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has been tracking youth political attitudes since 2000. "On literally every single question they’re moving left."