“Only in America can you commit a crime and get pardoned by the president, yet still be scolded for not saying ‘please’ while boarding Group 4.”
- adaptationguide.com
The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You
THE E-FILES: DISTRACTION #498
“The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You” — Says the Guy Who Helped Turn America Into a Trash-Fire Reality Show
By A.G., Disaster Files / Adaptation Blog Series
Welcome Back to the Golden Age of Gaslighting
Here we go again. Another week, another federal official lecturing the public on “civility,” as if the nation collectively woke up and decided, You know what? Let’s be feral on row 23 today.
Enter Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation — a man whose résumé reads like the setup to a punchline:
Former reality TV guy now working under another former reality TV guy, both publicly allergic to humility, now telling us to mind our manners.
If irony were jet fuel, every airport in America would be carbon-neutral by sunrise.
The 1960s Called — They Want Their Propaganda Back
Duffy dropped his new campaign this week with all the subtlety of a middle-seat bathroom burp.
“The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You,” he beams, over a montage of nostalgic air travel: men in hats, women in gloves, coiffed stewardesses gliding like benevolent sky-angels through wide aisles, feeding passengers actual meals that didn’t come vacuum-sealed in a plastic coffin.
And then — smash-cut — to present-day scenes of people duking it out over armrests and scrolling the in-flight entertainment with their toes.
It’s classic misdirection:
Look at the dirty peasants fighting! Don’t look at the industry that built the cage.
Incivility? Oh, Sweetheart. Have You Seen TSA?
Duffy’s big takeaway:
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People don’t say “please” or “thank you.”
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People don’t help senior citizens with overhead bins.
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People wear pajamas to the airport.
My takeaway:
People are stuck in serpentine TSA lines designed by Dante, while being barked at by agents who treat every flyer like they’re smuggling plutonium and emotional trauma in their shampoo bottle.
You want civility? Start with the federal checkpoint where dignity goes to die under fluorescent lighting.
The Golden Age of Airlines: A Love Letter to Corporate Amnesia
If we’re resurrecting the 1960s, then let’s bring the whole package:
✔️ Free checked bags
✔️ Free carry-ons
✔️ Free seat selection
✔️ Seats that fit actual humans and not malnourished contortionists
✔️ Legroom for carbon-based life forms
✔️ Meals that didn’t taste like regret
But oh no — Duffy’s not here for those golden days.
He’s here for the days when you were polite while corporations could do whatever the hell they wanted, because they were the ones wearing suits.
You Want My Respect? Start With Not Canceling My Flight
Let’s talk about why passengers are actually enraged:
• Flights constantly delayed or canceled
• Gate agents snapping like overstretched rubber bands
• Airlines overbooking flights like frat parties
• Planes operating at cattle-car density
• A nationwide air-traffic controller shortage
• FAA stress levels that would make surgeons sweat
But sure, the real national crisis is that someone wore pajama pants to Terminal C.
Reality TV Energy: Washington Edition
This whole civility sermon would land better if:
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It wasn’t preached by a cabinet secretary whose last major cultural contribution was televised shouting, and
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He didn’t report to a president who built an entire brand on verbal napalm, public tantrums, and turning cruelty into political performance art.
Asking this administration to lead a civility campaign is like asking a chainsaw to host a mindfulness retreat.
Meanwhile, Flight Attendants Are Wearing… What Now?
Let’s talk uniforms.
Duffy’s PSA oozes nostalgia for those 1960s glamorous stewardess looks. But today?
Most airlines dress their flight attendants like stressed athletic coaches.
Performance fabrics, practical shoes, tactical fanny packs of despair.
Don’t blame the staff. Blame the airlines that replaced “service” with “survive the shift.”
Let’s Be Blunt: A Polite Slob Beats a Polished Tyrant
If we’re choosing villains, I’ll take the guy in fleece pants who says “excuse me” over the executive in a three-piece suit who cancels a flight because his profit margin is feeling sensitive.
Respect isn’t in the fabric. It’s in the behavior.
And corporate America behaves like it buys its manners wholesale from the Discount Sociopath Catalog.
The Moral of the Story
This PSA is not about civility.
It’s about distraction, pure and simple:
A polished, Sinatra-soundtracked misdirection to shift blame for a failing travel system onto passengers — instead of the airlines, the regulators who deregulated themselves, and the politicians who treat public service like screen time.
Thus, we file it neatly into:
THE E-Files: Distraction #498
“When All Else Fails, Blame the People in Pajamas.”
