Habitually Tardy

A recent New York Post article about how New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had a flight to Puerto Rico that he was booked on delayed by his security team so he wouldn’t miss it. The article notes that de Blasio is “habitually tardy,” and there have been numerous articles about how he’s shown up an hour or more late to public and publicity events. Google finds many stories about his frequent lateness, and he’s been offered both advice and no-snooze alarm clocks by the press.

The always-late, in particular those who shrug their lateness off without comment or apology, are a pet peeve of mine. Everyone can be thwarted from time to time by the fates of traffic and transit, and everyone is capable of miscalculation. But when it’s the norm rather than the exception, there’s a particular and unpleasant message to be read.

Those who are always late are saying your time isn’t important to me, my time takes priority over everyone else’s. They may not consciously feel this way, they may claim they’re just disorganized and can’t help it. Even then, though, the underlying message is that the imposition that tardiness makes on others isn’t enough of a concern to warrant their effort. In short, they don’t care about other people all that much.

Applying this conclusion to New York’s mayor, a mayor who rode into office on a wave of progressivism and liberal beliefs, reveals a dissonance. We are told that liberals are the people who care most about others, who understand the plight of their fellow humans best, who hold the interests of society’s weakest at the fore. Doesn’t habitual tardiness give the lie to that premise and declaration? Isn’t an always-late liberal mayor demonstrating that his professed concern and respect for his constituents isn’t genuine? Is it all a con job?

Or is he just so cocooned in his liberal righteousness that the dissonance and hypocrisy doesn’t penetrate? Does the white knight for the oppressed not understand that his tardiness tells those he champions that they are beneath his station? Is this just another example of the statist elite’s hidden contempt for those they claim they care for?

Perhaps all of the above.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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