Socialism may have been declared dead in the United States following the end of the Cold War, but presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders does not tire of trying to sell the ideology to Democratic voters across the country.

"Let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me," Sanders told the crowd during a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday, The Atlantic said.

"It builds on what (President) Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans: Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy," the Vermont senator explained.

During his remarks, which the magazine's writer Clare Foran dubbed "wielding," Sanders lauded Roosevelt and President Lyndon Johnson for having used the federal government to create jobs and help Americans living in conditions of poverty. Though conservatives were opposed to their measures at the time, their efforts now make up "the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class." he argued.

But Bhaskar Sunkara - the founder, editor, and publisher of Jacobin, a radical socialist magazine that many view as a key publication of the American left - told Vox that Sander's understanding of socialism is lacking in certain ways. Still, the fact that the senator was putting the issue "on the table" was startling, the expert added.

"Socialism has been lost in American politics for a generation, swallowed up by Cold War politics and the broader assault on the labor movement. (And) Bernie Sanders said explicitly ... that 'I don't believe government should own the means of production,'" Sunkara assessed. "I disagree with him on that one ... but it's incredible for someone to even mention that."

Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, have used Sanders' self-adopted label as an argument against him, the Atlantic pointed out.

"I don't want America to succumb to the notion that there's anything good about socialism," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said about the Democrat's worldview.

His party rival, front-runner Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has not gone so far as to associate herself with the ideology, either, the magazine noted. But the former secretary of state has called for curbs on "the excesses of capitalism."