Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the United States. If he were to make it through a crowded Democratic Party primary field, successfully dodging attacks from party elites who recognize he’s not their ally, there’s no question that he could win the presidency in 2020. It’s an exciting prospect for those of us who believe, as Sanders once put it, that “this is class warfare, and we’re going to stand up and fight.”

But a democratic socialist in the White House is far from a silver bullet. The Supreme Court will be lost to liberals, let alone socialists, for many decades to come, and a majority of Congress will likely be composed of some combination of conservative Republicans who are bent on austerity and centrist Democrats who are more than willing to meet them halfway. Even if their numbers increase exponentially, progressives like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who share Bernie’s economic and social justice agenda, will be in the minority under a Sanders administration.

We should have healthy reservations about what a lone democratic socialist could accomplish at the helm of the capitalist state. In this political environment, what could Sanders do besides fight and lose, negotiate and concede, inevitably disappoint?