Two things I’ve seen:

  • A woman at the grocery store accelerates her overflowing cart past four people with small baskets who are converging on a checkout lane.  She begins to unload, oblivious to the multiple large red signs that read “10 items or less”.  Even giving her the benefit of multiple instances of the same item – 3 separate egg cartons counted as one item, since they’re all eggs – she far exceeds the limit.  Then she insists on paying by check.

    The checkout clerk makes eye contact with the people waiting, gives a sympathetic half-smile and a slight eye roll to acknowledge that she understands the situation. But she says and does nothing.  Nor do those in line.

  • At Citi Field during the 7th inning stretch, a long line snakes out of the men’s room. A man walks past the entire line, enters the bathroom, unzips his fly and urinates into the sink.  As he does, he looks around defiantly and locks eyes with one man in the line who wears an expression somewhere between disbelief and disgust.

    “What you looking at?” says the man at the sink. “I paid for my ticket.”
    Nobody says or does anything.

It’s not hard to believe that this behavior is a direct result of the man we’ve elected president, especially in light of his tweets today. It’s American to emulate presidents; we always have, probably always will.

How are they emulating him today?  Some are driven to seize any small victory they can achieve for themselves.  Some are taught to show no regard for how their words and actions affect their fellow Americans.  Others are cowed into mute acceptance.

A couple questions:

Is any of this behavior making America great? And if not, why are we doing it?