I don’t especially want to have dinner with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, be at the same table in a restaurant. She strongly supports political policies with which I disagree. Her ejection from a restaurant in Virginia last weekend, however, is way beyond acceptable norms of behavior. Is her ejection a barometer of the wave of populism that is changing American culture?
Mrs. Sanders is the Press Secretary for the Trump administration. We see her on television almost daily, reporting on the events at the White House, explaining the president’s policies and sometimes trying to explain the president himself or his tweets. It’s a difficult job that requires her to varnish the truth from time to time. Everyone knows it and goes along with the game. It’s too bad that press secretaries have to do that. She directs most of her pronouncements at the 30 percent of the population that form the Trump base of voters. I disagree with most of the things that energize them. But, that’s not the point!
Mrs. Sanders, accompanied by her husband and friends went to a small restaurant for dinner last weekend. The Red Hen has about 12 tables. When the wait-staff noticed that Mrs. Sanders was in the room, they, totally flummoxed, called the owner at home, to see what they should do about it. The owner came to her restaurant, asked Mrs. Sanders to go to the patio where they could talk privately. She asked Mrs. Sanders to leave. The restaurant owner did not want to serve anyone who worked for Trump. The rest of the dinner party left with her. The firestorm on social media was quick and ferocious, with about equal numbers of supporters and detractors.
Mrs. Sanders should not have been asked to leave. We must ask ourselves what has become of our country. Politics, always a blood sport, operated within certain rules of behavior. It is not acceptable to refuse service to someone because of who employs them. Disagree with their politics all you want, but they have the right to go out to dinner, expect a degree of privacy and expect good service. Regrettably, the owner of the restaurant did not extend that courtesy to Mrs. Sanders, and we, as a nation, are the worse for it.
The political divide in the country is severe; people no longer understand the idea of freedom of speech, expression, religion, or politics. Our values demand that we respect other people’s opinions, politics, or religion. Our ethos tells us not to discriminate against people for who they are, what they believe, or whom they worship. Yet, the nation is split down the middle on these core values. People won’t invite members of the opposite party into their homes, associate with them socially, or eat dinner in a restaurant with them.
We have seen balkanization too often in our history and the rest of the world. It never turns out ok. It leads to populism, and that never turns out ok. The issues that divide the nation are so great that few have real ideas for fixing them. We might start by letting families go to the restaurant of their choice. We might start by trying to be nicer to our fellow citizens. We might start by being more polite to those with whom we disagree politically. We might try staying calm.
Will Durant summarized one of Aristotle’s famous works this way: “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.” Isn’t it time for us to be, repeatedly, a tolerant people, not a divisive people, to be a people willing, repeatedly, to consider other points of view, to be a people repeatedly willing to let even our political opposites enjoy an evening meal with friends?
