Did Barack Obama just cancel himself?

That’s the question an editor here asked me on Saturday, as we watched comments Mr. Obama had made about the 2020 race reverberate across social media.

In case you missed it: Mr. Obama expressed some thoughts at a meeting of wealthy donors in Washington on Friday night. Aides billed the event as a chance for him to calm some of the anxiety that establishment party types are expressing about the Democratic field. Mr. Obama did that, reminding them of how brutal his primary fight was against Hillary Clinton in 2008 — and, hey, that turned out O.K., right?

Then, Mr. Obama’s remarks veered into his own worries about the field.

“I don’t think we should be deluded into thinking that the resistance to certain approaches to things is simply because voters haven’t heard a bold enough proposal and if they hear something as bold as possible then immediately that’s going to activate them,” he said. “People rightly are cautious because they don’t have a lot of margin for error.”

“This is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement,” he added. “They like seeing things improved, but the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”