As socialists prepare for the long campaign to elect Bernie Sanders president, we should be thinking about the confrontations to come if we actually get what we want. We’ve been losing for a very long time. There have been some green shoots recently, but we still face immense challenges in simply overcoming neoliberal capitalism, let alone moving beyond social democracy and into a democratic-socialist society.

One possible outcome of a Sanders presidency involves the administration bowing to “political reality,” abandoning most of its program, and finding one or two symbolic measures it can pass. Its supporters are told to be happy with what they can get. Think of this as the “Bill de Blasio” scenario.

The other scenario involves a working-class movement and its president going to war with Congress (not just the Republicans but most of the Democrats as well), the Supreme Court, and recalcitrant state legislatures; adopting a strategy of dissensus rather than consensus; and demanding that undemocratic obstacles to necessary social change are swept out of the way. Think of this as the “Salvador Allende” scenario.