Last week, Senate Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill expressed frustration about Mr. Obama’s lack of leadership. Meanwhile, assistant House Democratic leader James Clyburn and other congressional Democrats openly discussed their strategy to stir up racial animosity over the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., to energize a larger African-American turnout to save iffy House and Senate Democratic seats in the midterms.

This is hardly inspiring stuff. If Washington is not working, voters tend to blame the man in charge. That is the president.

Mr. Obama was once thought to be in touch with the concerns of the American people. Those days are over. A great gulf now exists between the president and the citizenry—between how he perceives the economy and world and how they do. This disconnect could well cost his party this November. Whether it does, the policies crafted from Mr. Obama’s worldview are already costing the country its full measure of prosperity and security.