At the official kickoff of his reelection campaign, President Obama offered a tacit (although unintended) admission of four years of failure, declaring, “We have to move forward, to the future we imagined in 2008. … That’s why I’m running for a second term as president of the United States.” This peculiar yet revealing emphasis on the future, the past, and the imaginary neglects only two things: the present and reality. Lacking laudable achievements to tout in the present, Obama wants voters to focus on the future they imagined in the past. This is what he means by moving “forward.”

As viewers watch the Democratic Convention unfold this week in Charlotte, they will hear a steady dose of emphasis on the increasingly distant past (“it’s Bush’s fault”) and the still-imaginary future.  But they will hear precious little about the present—about achievements by the Obama administration that are bearing fruit in the present day lives of everyday Americans.