Two-thirds of the public (64%) are optimistic about the direction of the country, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll that coincided with President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office. That’s a high number, but the glaring question it leaves hanging in the air is what on earth the other 36% are thinking.

It’s important to remember that questions about direction relate, by definition, not just to where one is going but also where one is coming from. And America has just been through the year 2020, a hideous time in which tens of millions of people lost their jobs, a million-plus businesses closed, and all of us, social creatures that we are, were forced to stay apart from one another in ways that undermined physical and mental health.