“If you watch the nightly news, it feels like the world is falling apart,” President Obama told Democratic mega-contributors last month in one of the 400-plus fundraisers of his presidency.

But not to worry. “The world has always been messy,” he said. “In part, we’re just noticing now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through.” Like being beheaded by Islamist terrorists. Or having your country invaded by Russian soldiers.