CONCERNS: We say "our democracy" is our concern!

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024

How well do we know ourselves? "Your concerns are my concerns," the Hemingway character said.

We refer to the Mariel Hemingway character in the 1979 feature film, Manhattan. According to the leading authority on the topic, "the film received critical acclaim," though it didn't match the Best Picture Oscar win of its immediate predecessor.

At age 18, Hemingway was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In the face of some unusual subject matter, Manhattan was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

"Your concerns are my concerns," the Hemingway character tells her boyfriend near the end of the film Culturally, there was an element of strangeness involved? The authority explains:

Manhattan (1979 film)

[...]

The film opens with a montage of images of Manhattan and other parts of New York City accompanied by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, with Isaac Davis narrating drafts of an introduction to a book about a man who loves the city. 

Isaac is a twice-divorced, 42-year-old television comedy writer who quits his boring job. He is dating Tracy, a 17-year-old girl attending the Dalton School. 

Say what? The boyfriend was 42 years old. He was basically living with the largely unparented Hemingway character, who was still a senior in prep school. 

So it sometimes went in 1970s film. It was an era in which Brooke Shields, then age 11, appeared nude in one scene in Pretty Baby (1978), which we regard as a searching film about traditional gender roles.

We don't recall the extent to which the relationship in Manhattan produced critical cultural comment. We don't recall whether it produced any such commentary at all.

As noted, Manhattan was widely praised by major critics, largely for an array of fairly obvious reasons. The New York Film Critics Circle gave its director their award for best director of the year.

"Your concerns are my concerns," the Hemingway says to her boyfriend, in a truly beautiful line reading. It was never entirely clear what those concerns really were. 

So too for us who live in Blue America at this parlous point in time. What are our concerns at this time? But also, and very important:

Just how well do we understand ourselves? Favorable self-portraits to the side, just how well do we understand the true nature of our concerns?

Yesterday, a gruesome set of polling data emerged. All such data are, of course, subject to various forms of error. Also, these new numbers emerge as a bit of an outlier.

That said, these new statistics from CNN have Candidate Trump leading Candidate Biden by six points nationwide—49-43 percent. Those numbers could be substantially wrong—or they could be basically accurate, if only at this point in time.

Those numbers could be substantially accurate! That said, what sorts of concerns could be driving such figures? 

CNN asked! According to CNN's polling director, 65% of registered voters called the economy extremely important to their vote for president. 

No other issue scored that high. Headline included, CNN's report adds this:

Considering other issue priorities for the upcoming election, 58% of voters call protecting democracy an extremely important issue, the only other issue tested that a majority considers central to their choice. 

Nearly half call immigration, crime and gun policy deeply important (48% each), with health care (43%), abortion (42%) and nominations to the US Supreme Court (39%) each deeply important to about 4 in 10 voters. At the lower end of the scale, just 33% consider foreign policy that important, 27% climate change, 26% the war between Israel and Hamas, and 24% student loans.

There remain sharp partisan differences in which issues are most critical to choosing a president. Among Democratic-aligned voters, protecting democracy (67%), abortion (54%), the economy (52%), gun policy (51%) and health care (49%) all rank as key for about half or more, while on the GOP-aligned side, it’s the economy (79%), immigration (71%), crime (65%) and then democracy (54%).

Foreign affairs and climate change, good-bye! On the brighter side, a majority of respondents in each major party called "protecting democracy" a major issue. 

But what did respondents have in mind when they chose that as a point of concern? We were struck by this additional observation:

But the poll finds that Biden voters and Trump voters largely just don’t understand each other. Among those who do not currently support Biden, 66% say they don’t understand why anyone would support him, and 63% of those not backing Trump say they can’t understand why anyone would support him.

Our concerns may not be their concerns! And make no mistake:

When it comes to "protecting democracy," Red America's voters are thinking of one set of possibilities. Voters in our own Bue America will typically be thinking of something different.

According to the CNN survey, Biden voters and Trump voters "largely don't understand each other." This week, we'll be exploring a different question:

How well do we voters in Blue America understand ourselves? How well do we understand our own stated concerns?

Over and over, again and again, our thought leader say that their major concern involves the possibility that we will lose our democracy if Donald Trump wins—that this could be our last election.

But what are we eager to be talking about as we conduct our sacred elections? As with other human groups, we're inclined to paint a lofty portrait of our concerns, but when the rubber meets the road, what kinds of tracks are we leaving?

Did Donald J. Trump commit a crime with respect to his alleged sex life?

For ourselves, we don't especially care about that. That said:

Dating to the dawn of time, we humans have frequently displayed a tendency to be concerned with little or nothing else.

As a matter of basic anthropology, what exactly are our concerns? Has anything changed through the ages?

Day after day, we portray our concerns. How well do we know ourselves?

Tomorrow: Late Bronze Age election