Bernie Sanders has flaws. But he could still be a force for good in 2024.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has signaled that he’s potentially open to another presidential run.

At least, when asked on “CBS Mornings” whether he plans to run for president again, the socialist firebrand didn’t rule it out. “That’s something — you know, I haven’t made that decision,” Sanders said Tuesday.

It’s by no means a confirmation of a third presidential run, and the odds that he’d prevail aren’t high. But it’s the clearest sign yet that he still has the energy, and possibly the inclination, to make another attempt.

Sanders’ position is likely to draw sighs of exasperation from his center-left critics and even raise eyebrows among some of his former fans. He has already failed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination twice, and he’s 81 years old — a little over a year older than Joe Biden, who is currently the oldest president to serve the United States.

In the spring, a leaked memo from his former campaign manager to Sanders allies said he hadn’t ruled out another run. This latest comment pushes the ball forward even further, because it was a statement from Sanders himself on national television. And we’re now approaching the midterms, which means 2024 jockeying is just a few months away.

So let’s take seriously, for a moment, the possibility that Sanders is in fact considering another White House run. Under certain conditions, it would be a defensible move, and valuable for the country.

One condition is that Sanders does not run against Biden, if Biden decides to try to stay on for a second term. Fortunately, Sanders challenging Biden seems almost inconceivable. Sanders has already said he would support Biden if he ran again. He also has a personal friendship with Biden that has probably only become stronger as Biden pivoted further to the left after winning the Democratic primary in 2020. Biden actively courted Sanders’ political alliance and policy ideas in the run-up to the general election, and he has enlisted Sanders as a defender of his most sweeping progressive policy proposals — which went much further than progressives had anticipated prior to Biden’s election.

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Operating with the baseline assumption that Sanders runs only if Biden doesn’t, another condition is that no serious politician with Sanders’ worldview runs as well. If a credible advocate for democratic socialism and anti-imperialism steps up to the plate, then Sanders should use the occasion to pass the torch to the next generation and act as a surrogate for his chosen candidate. (Sanders’ circle has reportedly encouraged Rep. Ro Khanna of California to consider a presidential bid, toward that very end it seems.)

Assuming those conditions are met, another Sanders run wouldn’t excite me the way his first two runs did, but it could still be a force for tremendous good. Sanders has become an extraordinarily influential politician through his previous two runs. In 2020, most of the major Democratic candidates took on some of his signature policy proposals like “Medicare for All” — or positioned themselves by holding them at some kind of measured distance. They did this because they believed that Sanders was tapping into real desires in the progressive Democratic electorate, and because they viewed Sanders as a serious threat whose ideas should be co-opted or moderated instead of ignored.

Without Sanders or a Sanders-like figure in the mix, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary could easily end up feeling more like an attempted coronation than an open field. With Biden in the White House, and the specter of another Donald Trump presidential nomination from the Republican Party, Democratic voters will be primed to look for cues from Biden, party elites and the media on how to keep the boat steady while warding off another potential showdown against Trump. Biden administration figures like Vice President Kamala Harris or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are obvious candidates for Biden’s case for Biden 2.0. Without a serious lefty challenger, the primary debate could skew far too centrist — especially on economic issues, given the challenge of inflation — and focus too heavily on defeating Trump rather than laying out a robust, positive vision of how to address society’s ills.

If Sanders were to run again, I’d probably bet on him losing again. In 2020 he underperformed by many metrics compared to his 2016 run against Hillary Clinton, and his continual problems with turning out Black voters, moderates and first-time voters in the primaries seem likely to encumber a third attempt as well.

But in the unlikely event that he won, he would be well-positioned to beat Trump. Democratic turnout will be high in any general election against Trump; Sanders is immune to Trump’s powerful broadsides against establishment candidate corruption; and Sanders is uniquely well-suited for our populist moment. (None of this is to say I wouldn’t have concerns about his age or his competitiveness against a different Republican nominee.)

In an ideal world, Sanders is able to help foster the arrival of one of the next lefty champions in electoral politics. But given the right circumstances, he shouldn’t be ruled out as a valuable contributor to a future nominating contest that could be at risk of a dangerously narrow range of debate.