Democrats have been sure messaging is their main problem ever since they started losing elections to a retired movie actor in the 1980s. “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it” isn’t just a clumsy quote from House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — it’s part of a larger liberal mentality that if the people only understood Democratic policies, they would support them.

But much of what has brought Biden to his recent lows isn’t messaging. Inflation, a migrant surge at the border, the sloppy exit from Afghanistan — whatever the merits of Biden’s spending, immigration, and foreign policies, Americans see these real, observable phenomena and are concerned Biden doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was warned in every case, and his predictions about how all of these things would play out have so far been wrong. The very Post story in which so many Democrats complained about insufficient administration braggadocio is itself premised on the idea that Biden underestimated the country’s problems.