Eventually, of course, a recession will come. Recessions always do. The problem for Democrats is that there’s no guarantee that it will come before the election. In the meantime, they’ve left a trail of bad forecasts that make them look silly and out-of-touch — which the Trump campaign will gleefully use against them.

More importantly, it creates the perception that Democrats (at least those of the more ideological variety) are secretly hoping for a downturn, both to help their electoral chances and vindicate their own past predictions.

It’s unbecoming. It suggests a party led by people for whom questions of job creation and growth will always be abstractions, since their own jobs and prospects will always be safe. It’s what The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan shrewdly described in 2016 as the “protected class” — the people who make policies but never really have to live with the consequences.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was the candidate of the protected class, Trump of the unprotected. If Democrats decide to run against prosperity — either by pretending it isn’t really happening or that it doesn’t matter — it will only send a message to the voters they lost last time that the party still doesn’t get it.

They’ll lose again.

There’s a reason Trump’s approval rating is now at 46 percent — the highest of his presidency, according to Gallup — despite all the Democratic thundering about William Barr’s testimony to Congress and the renewed talk of impeachment. Wittingly or not, Trump is delivering on the core promise of the presidency.

There’s also a reason that Joe Biden has taken a commanding early lead in the race for the Democratic nomination. His central theme is that he’s a regular guy who will restore regular order to Washington and regular behavior in the White House without mucking things up through a grand redesign of American capitalism. It isn’t clear that Biden will be able to get through the primary without putting both feet in his mouth and falling flat on his face. But that’s the right theory of the race.

Democrats need a candidate who gets this. They need someone who will work to enlarge our prosperity, not redistribute it. They need someone who can communicate and deliver, without embarrassing and frightening normal people the way Trump does.

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