Our poor, unappreciated president

You do not get credit, really, for the averting of crises, or for their amelioration, and so the disconnect between the White House and the public begins there. From the perspective of the West Wing, the Obama team inherited economic and military disasters that could very well have gotten worse than they have. Why, then, they wonder, do voters not appreciate the administration more? Why the low poll numbers, the general grumpiness, the low confidence in our institutions?

Because the public lives in a world where jobs are scarce, and if you cannot find work, it does not matter to you that there could be even fewer jobs if this policy had not been followed or that bill passed. What matters to you is that the great American middle class is in serious danger of disappearing as the central organizing cultural and political element of our national life. That, I believe, is the more universal fear at work now, and for all the political class’s talk about this primary or that poll, more Americans feel more vulnerable in more existential ways than they have in a very long time. The rescue and recovery of the middle class is likely to be the chief task of this decade.

The president knows this. He talks about it (if episodically), and he is governing in ways that will, he hopes, bring prosperity and security to an ever-wider part of America. If he succeeds, the future will thank him, and that is where leaders get thanked.