I stumbled across this tweet by American Conservative editor Helen Andrews, in which she remarks on pausing her commute at the local Metro, in Washington, DC, and counting the number of fare-dodgers that could be spotted within a five-minute period. An exercise she repeated, with an average of 22 fare-dodgers and a peak of 40. In five minutes.

What stood out, however, were the tweeted replies, often from blue-ticked progressives and self-styled creatives with many flags in their bios, and ostentatious pronouns, and which conveyed a kind of pre-emptive disapproval of any thoughts along such lines.

“Do you literally have nothing better to do?” asked one film and TV director, adding, “Why don’t you stand outside a bank and interview business owners who steal wages from hourly employees?” Some insisted that an escalation of fare-dodging has no victims or unhappy social effects, and that fares are a “classist, racist” assault on “poor and BIPOC folks.” Others, including lecturers and lawyers, added “who cares?” or deployed the terms “narc” and “snitch,” again suggesting that certain observations are not to be aired. One “Oscar-nominated screenwriter” expressed his “exhausted rage” at such things being noticed at all.

The general theme of the replies, and the air of annoyance, reminded me of Ms Claudia Balducci, a woman responsible for Seattle’s public transport network. Faced with evidence that up to 70% of passengers are now freeloading with impunity, Ms Balducci replied:

Which is progress, apparently. An achievement unlocked.

Update, via the comments: