All Power to the Soviets! Er, Socialists!

God forbid you should ever think of the staff and management of the New York Times as a bunch of crypto-socialists whose red-diaper-baby roots go back unto the generations. Right?

Are You a Democratic Socialist?

Democratic socialists have been one of the breakout groups of the 2018 election season, but many voters don’t know what exactly they stand for. Do you?

Democratic socialists have been one of the breakout groups of the 2018 midterm elections, springing to national attention in June with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset of a 10-term incumbent, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

But for all their electoral triumphs so far, democratic socialism remains poorly understood and is frequently conflated, incorrectly, with communism — or, on the flip side, with European-style social democracy. So we built a quiz to help you understand what it is, and how your own political views compare with it.

A word of caution before we start: Just like “liberal” or “conservative,” the term “democratic socialist” can mean different things to different people. For the purposes of this quiz, we are using the definition promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States.

Forty D.S.A.-affiliated candidates have won primaries this year, the organization says, and eight others were nominated after running unopposed. If you hear a 2018 candidate describe her- or himself as a democratic socialist, it is a safe bet that they mean this kind.