sacrifices from Democrats and Democrats alike

I'm sure people will patiently inform me of the answer in the comments, but I do have a pretty major question here.

Ezra Klein is reporting on a proposed deal for the latest absurd budget fracas between the chastened Republican rump and the Democratic party that they nevertheless dominate. And as Paul Krugman says, if this is the deal, it's a terrible one for liberals and Democrats. Terrible. I have no idea if this deal will come to fruition; I certainly hope not. If it does, I expect left-wing pushback, and the inevitable ugly, acrimonious fight between the existentially Obama-defending left and the we-should-stand-for-principles-and-not-politicians left. Now, I expect that the Kevin Drums of the world will, in the face of liberal criticisms of such a deal, pull out the old "the presidency is weak" line of argument. Corey Robin summarized this stance recently, as the notion of the presidency as "a radically constrained institution, which is often buffeted by forces it can’t control—in Congress, and elsewhere." Now, this is complicated, because the president's authority is unevenly distributed; a big part of my point when it comes to drones is that Obama has almost unfettered ability to shutter the program without the review of Congress. On domestic matters, it's a more complicated story. And this complication will be used to excuse Obama cutting a bad deal. "What do you want, liberals? Hey, it's a center-right country! We've got to restrict access to Medicare, or else we might get Republicans in office who will attack our social safety net!"

Here's my problem: for months prior to Election Day, many Democrats and liberals insisted that the position of the presidency was so vastly important that it was worth suspending certain moral and ethical principles in order to elect the better candidate. I don't want to rehash the wrongness or rightness of lesser evilism yet again. I'm just pointing out that this was the argument. And please note that the moral stakes simply could not have been higher; what was in argument were issues of literal life and death, of our stance towards the killing of innocent people. Retaining the presidency was so important that we had to put some of our most basic convictions on hold.

I don't understand how these two impulses-- to elevate the importance of the presidency to the point that you excuse any behavior to capture it, and acting like the president has essentially no power to implement his vision-- can be reconciled so effortlessly. How can it be the case that electing the more liberal presidential candidate is at once the solemn duty of all progressive people, because it's such a powerful position, and that the president shouldn't be criticized for the deals he strikes, because he just isn't that powerful? I understand that there is space to say "the presidency is very constrained, but the decisions the president makes are still very important." But that space simply is not the space occupied by the people defending Obama during the election. Rather they advanced a maximal reading of the power of the presidency, the better to make the case for supporting the lesser evil.

John Cole has the goods here. (I should admit that I was unfair to the BJ crowd during the election, although not so unfair as some in the BJ crowd tended to be towards Obama's critics. I am sorry, though. Few of us covered ourselves in glory.)

I said during the election that Democrats make winning a type of losing. I meant that even when they win, they play the Republicans' game, and in so doing create internal dissension on the left that the Republicans take advantage of again, and again.... As Krugman says, if we do nothing, rates rise without a cut in benefits. And Obama doesn't need to get reelected. And we just had a landslide election, at least in terms of electoral votes. And god, if this is not an existential issue for liberals... what could be? Read Digby, at her formidable best, schooling neoliberal troll Jon Chait. Raising the Medicare eligibility rate means that old people die of preventable illnesses. What is the purpose of winning elections if we then trade away what was won, based on extremely shoddy reasoning and the threats of a party in retreat? And just how far can "but Republicans would be worse" take us away from our core values before we have none at all?

I dearly hope that Klein is wrong. And I dearly hope that I'm wrong about who will defend such a deal, and with what force.

Update: Again: there's a good chance this won't be the deal, and I'll dance a jig if it isn't. I truly hope that Obama doesn't agree to this.