Opinion | F.D.R. Got It. Most Democrats Don’t.

Warren’s presidential agenda has several other easily understandable ideas, like a $200-a-month increase in Social Security benefits, a price reduction for insulin and other popular drugs, the cancellation of up to $50,000 in student debt and a wealth tax. During a recent interview with her, I mentioned that she seemed to believe that bigger ideas were sometimes easier to accomplish than more modest ones. “I do,” she replied. Big ideas can inspire people; tax credits do not.

I don’t agree with all of Warren’s ideas (see: Medicare for All), but I think she is onto something important here. Creating a new era of progressive change — to take on problems like climate change and extreme inequality — depends on persuading more Americans that government is a force for good.

The best way to improve the image of government is not through soaring speeches by politicians. It’s through a version of the old journalism cliché: Show, don’t tell. “You want people to be able to see the way government is helping them,” Jacob Hacker, a Yale political scientist, says, “and have a stake in defending it.”

Right now, the government often does the opposite. Many programs are hidden in the tax code, as Suzanne Mettler of Cornell explained in her book “The Submerged State.” Upper-middle-class families receive thousands of dollars from the mortgage-interest deduction without thinking of it as a government benefit. Lower-income families sign up for the earned-income tax credit by visiting a tax-preparation company, which can make the benefit appear to come from H&R Block, rather than Uncle Sam.

The Obama stimulus remains the canonical example. Out of a well-intended desire to get Americans to spend more of their stimulus tax cut, the administration snuck the money into people’s paychecks, rather than sending one-time checks (as George W. Bush had done in 2001) that families might have saved.

Economically, it worked. Spending rose, helping to end the financial crisis. Politically, it was a dud. Many Americans gave Obama little credit and voted for Republicans in the 2010 midterms, virtually killing his larger legislative agenda. The stealth tax cut was a smart idea, but it needed to be paired with more salient forms of stimulus, like those projects on the Life Magazine map.