Last year, the United States economy turned in its best performance in roughly four decades. Inflation-adjusted growth was up 5.7 percent in 2021, and there were 6.4 million jobs created — the best such figures since 1984 and 1978, respectively.

Outside of perfunctory reports on those numbers Thursday, you wouldn’t know it from most mainstream news. Instead there has been an endless hyper-fixation on inflation — which, while relatively high, is far better than the stagnation and mass unemployment that was the most realistic alternative.

Neither have Democrats succeeded in pushing a narrative of success. On the contrary, a recent Gallup poll found that the share of Americans naming “economic issues” as the biggest problem facing the country has roughly tripled over the year, with inflation as the most commonly mentioned particular worry. Not only are President Biden and his party not getting any credit for the recovery, they’re apparently barely even trying to claim it. Why?

It’s hard to say precisely what’s going on, given that I am not privy to internal White House discussions, but I can outline three plausible factors.

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