A few decades ago, back when we were in our thirties, Betty and I were at a Christmas crafts fair in Comfort, Texas.  

Betty picked up something engraved with "Everything's Bigger in Texas" and smirked that smirk she does, especially when she's seen the same thing for the hundredth time in one day.  

"Texans sure are proud of themselves," she said.

Texans do, maybe more than most states, enjoy heavy doses of self-congratulation, equating bigness with best.  

The obsession with bigness tends to be evident in certain types of males, and the current resident of the White House is a caricature of it.  They build tall towers and talk in superlatives: the best, the biggest, the greatest.  Could they be compensating for a sense of littleness in themselves?  

One of the things I love about Rita (and it's hard not to conflate this series with the character of Denmark as a whole) is that big is no big deal.  The two teachers in the story are devoted to their little school.  They live simply and share. 

While they may occasionally tell a little while lie ("Have you been smoking?" "No, it's the new nicotine mouth wash I've started using") they are all basically truth tellers who don't need to inflate themselves. When they mess up, they apologize--but not profusely.  Students call teachers by their first names and freely express their opinions to adults.  People seem humbler, less needy of accolades and hierarchies. 

Texas may be the most self-congratulatory state, but a tendency to claim being the best, the biggest, the greatest, is baked into the national personality.  The biggest guns, the biggest military, the obsession with money and power, the "great big beautiful wall," the biggest crowd ever, the best words, and the never-ending stream of ads that tout bigness as best-ness.  

Quality and value rarely come in extra-large.  And watch out for the Trump and Falwell types who tell you how great, how good, how right/moral/honest they are--dead give-aways for being the opposite.  

The series, Rita, is so refreshing!  The unspoken motto is not "Be Best," but Be Real.