Yes, Americans Are Getting More Rude – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Many of us have had experiences like these: You are standing in line at Walmart with your children, and the person in front of you, wearing pajama bottoms and flip-flops, is wearing a t-shirt with “If you don’t like this t-shirt, f*** off” on the back. The cashier at the grocery store acts bored and drums her fingers as if you are an idiot for challenging the charges on your receipt. People at the park are screaming at each other and swearing loudly in front of children. You patiently wait, blinker on, for someone to pull out of a parking spot, but the minute they do, someone cuts in front of you and swoops in to take the spot. Or they take spots reserved for the disabled and pregnant. At a family gathering, relatives tell you that it is important for their mental health to treat their aunt with disdain because her politics are problematic. They are just mimicking the politicians, who, it appears, have lost the capacity, in many if not most cases, to treat their opponents decently. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil, sharing a beer and a good joke, I miss you! (RELATED: Even The View Hosts Don’t Want You to Skip Holidays With Family)

Baby boomers like me have no problem acknowledging that this type of uncivility has gotten much worse since we were kids. I got my mouth washed out with soap for swearing. T-shirts with profanity would have gotten you thrown out of stores and stopped by the police. Rudeness that used to be almost universally condemned is now tolerated, even celebrated. Democrats refusing to speak to relatives, lovers, and close friends (or even divorcing errant spouses) for supporting Trump is defended by some prominent psychiatrists. As Jonathan Turley notes, “Yale University chief psychiatry resident Dr. Amanda Calhoun is advising that it may also be necessary for your mental health to cut off your family and friends who supported Trump.” (Apparently, Trump voters cutting off Harris-supporting relatives is not in view.) (RELATED: The Children of Elites Are in Trouble)

We aren’t the first Western nation to witness an alarming rise in uncivility, in plain old rudeness. William Wilberforce, the famous British statesman and anti-slavery crusader of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, began a movement to reduce public obscenity and incivility alongside his far better-known movement to end slavery.

In 1787, he started his Proclamation Society for the reformation of manners, right along with his Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and following King George III’s proclamation “For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality.” Said Wilberforce, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners, by which he meant the reform of the morals of Britain.” This included targeting vice, lewdness, slander, and the like. Can you imagine a public figure today setting, side by side, improving manners and ending the slave trade? (And make no mistake, we have a thriving slave trade today — so-called “human trafficking” — right along with epidemic levels of incivility.)

Wilberforce believed that there was a clear link between public policy and the way people conducted themselves personally. He believed that good manners and sound public policy went together. Does anyone witnessing political intransigence among our leaders and the American people, buttressed by plain old rudeness, have a good reason to doubt this? Did anyone watch the Democrats sitting on their hands during Trump’s recent joint address to Congress, even when he made a boy struggling with cancer an honorary Secret Service Agent? Did anyone see Congressman Al Green (not the musician) being hauled out, shaking his cane? How low can we go? (RELATED: The Best Predictor of Brat Behavior in Congress)

Well, we haven’t hit bottom yet. The Pew Research Center now informs us, based on impeccable research, that since the pandemic, rudeness in America has gotten even worse. Are we surprised? Even in the idyllic western Pennsylvania small town in which I live, I see it almost daily. So, what does Pew tell us?

First, almost half of those polled said Americans had gotten ruder since the pandemic. For one-in-five, this is a lot ruder. Forty-four percent say there has been no change. Almost no one thought things had gotten better. So, about half of Americans have experienced a downward shift in everyday civility, and for many of these, that shift has been severe.

Second, a bit more than one-in-three say that they see rudeness “almost always or often” when they enter public spaces. For close to half, they see such behavior in public “sometimes.” That is a whole lot of interpersonal aggravation. Sadly, this is just one more reason for Americans to withdraw from everyday social interactions in public. Who needs this?

So, what do Americans find “rude”? Sadly, about 70 percent said that it was rude to “bring a child into a place that’s typically for adults, such as a bar or upscale restaurant.” Frankly, I find that definition of “rude” uncivil in itself. If it were focused just on misbehaving children, I get it. But just any child? No wonder our fertility rates are plummeting. We are increasingly an anti-child society.

There were many other behaviors noted as rude, however, that jive with my tastes and personal experience. Clothing that displays crude language and cussing in public? About two-thirds of those polled found this to be rude. Smoking in front of others was considered rude by almost eight-in-10 of respondents. (I defend your right to smoke, but not to make me smoke your smoke.)  Photographing someone without permission was noted by three-quarters of respondents. Playing music out loud in public is disliked by six out of 10 people. And one I find particularly hard to fathom is people wearing headphones in public while interacting with others, including with store clerks. Almost six in 10 people agree with me that this is rude.

There are huge age divides on these issues, which helps to explain why these behaviors are so pervasive, and which brings into question how many of these young people are raised. (No one ever washed their mouths out with soap for swearing — a wonderful curative.) For example, only 42 percent of those 18 to 29 years of age thought that wearing clothing with vile language on it is “rarely/never acceptable,” compared to 86 percent of uptight old fogies like me.

Maybe people just don’t know what offends others? Not so. A whopping 84 percent said they “know what’s appropriate to do in public these days.” This includes 80 percent of those under 30, most of whom find much rude behavior in public to be somewhat or totally acceptable. In other words, these rude people typically know they are offending others, but they just don’t care. My observation is that they often seem to want to offend others, even strangers. This is appalling.

Incidentally, there were no differences in judgments about rudeness by political party. Democrats and Republicans share common views about what is acceptable public behavior and the increasing levels of rudeness. It is nice to find something that has not been politicized.

Anti-littering campaigns abound. In fact, in 2023 New York City launched its first anti-littering campaign in 15 years, targeting among others those who let their dog poop on the sidewalks. Why not launch something similar for a form of pollution that impacts a lot more people in often more serious and less avoidable ways — rampant rudeness?

This would be a fine bully pulpit opportunity for the president, or even better, our first lady. It would be among the shrinking number of ways that people could be pulled together in support of something that is supremely bipartisan. Either way, William Wilberforce, we need you!

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