Oooh, our widdle junior senator is now a fire-breathing socialist: "Vote for me!"

Break up the corporations! $30 minimum wage! Unions must rule! Oh - guns? They aren’t so bad, guys — I mean, I understand why you rubes and hicks might want one or two of ‘em.

As Sen. Chris Murphy walks across Connecticut, he carries a new message

New to him, perhaps, but it’s the same old red socialist crap that demagogues have been spewing since the days of bread and circuses

Over a 35-minute walk-and-talk with CT Insider, Murphy spent plenty of time criticizing Trump — for the President's cuts, pardons and general "assault on the rule of law." The senator warned, as he has before, that he's not fully confident the U.S. will have free and fair elections in 2026.

But he also articulated a newer, populist world view that could have come straight from the mouth of progressive torchbearer Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator.

"The concentration of corporate power in this country is killing our economy and driving people absolutely crazy," Murphy said. "We need to break up concentrated corporate power; we need to dramatically raise wages, including the minimum wage; we need to we need to rebuild the power of unions in this country; we need to raise the economic floor so that people have more secure retirement benefits, a better education guarantee."

Since Trump beat Democrat Kamala Harris to win the presidency in November, Murphy has increasingly sounded like this. Democrats have struggled with working class voters in recent elections, and he sees this type of messaging as a way to win them back.

But it's one thing to speak like a populist, it's another to vote like one. What's a policy Murphy might not have supported a decade ago that now he'd embrace?

"When I came into politics, I talked about creating a level playing field between labor and management," he said. "Today, I'm convinced we should have a preference for unions. We should make it really easy for somebody to join together with their fellow workers in order to bargain for better wages and better benefits."

Unprompted, he offered another example.

"When I started out in politics I was arguing for pretty incremental increases in the minimum wage," he said. "I think we've got to see a dramatic increase in the minimum wage so that we eventually get to a point where one income for a family of four is enough to lead a dignified life. That's not a $15 minimum wage. That's a $25 or $30 minimum wage."

Murphy's shift toward economic populism means he has de-emphasized issues that were once central to his political identity. For example, he now believes Democrats should accept a wider range of opinions on gun policy, to find candidates who can win in more rural districts. And he waves off a question on college sports reform, another of his onetime favorite topics, saying that's not something he's likely to hear about from constituents on his walk.

Not everyone is necessarily buying Murphy's pivot to populism. In December, political analyst Nate Silver tweeted that he doubts "the populist revolution will be led by a Senator from Connecticut who went to Williams College and has spent his whole career in politics."

(Here’s our junior senator from way back in February 2023, before he discovered a new appreciation for guns and gun owners)