The Presidential election has a long way to go, but the line of the year so far is President Obama’s on Friday: “You didn’t build that.” Rarely do politicians so clearly reveal their core beliefs. …

This burst of ideological candor is already resonating like nothing else Mr. Obama’s said in years. The Internet is awash with images of the President telling the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs and other innovators they didn’t build that. Kevin Costner’s famous line in “Field of Dreams,” as adapted for Mr. Obama: “If you build it, we’ll still say you didn’t really build it.”

Beneath the satire is the serious point that Mr. Obama’s homily is the soul of his campaign message. The President who says he wants to be transformational may be succeeding—and subordinating to government the individual enterprise and risk-taking that underlies prosperity. The question is whether this is the America that most Americans want to build.