‘No Soup for You’ — The Bitter Political Conundrum of ‘Public Shaming’
The Left-Right divide in America becomes uncivil in the Age of Trump.
Watching ‘Morning Joe,’ the MSNBC three-hour morning political gabfest, Monday; I was struck by the disparate takes of the panel, on the most recent phase of the Trump #Resistance movement, a largely individualized (i.e., not organized) response to dealing with Trump officialdom, and Trumpism, in the public square.
The Morning Joe panel weighed in (and largely disagreed) on the most recent case of ‘public shaming,’ wherein White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was politely asked to leave The Red Hen, a small farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, a small town which went for Hillary Clinton, in a county that went for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
To be clear; this really wasn’t a perfect example of public shaming, in that Mrs. Sanders was taken aside (from her group of diners) by the owner of the establishment and not humiliated in front of her guests, or the other patrons. It is also true that Red Hen co-owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, did not post some proud anti-Trump missive about the incident on Facebook, or elsewhere on social media. No,…that would be Mrs. Sanders, herself, who went public — and officially so, by misusing her White House Twitter account to report the incident to a rapt world at large.
And, to what end? To express polite, muted outrage about being singled out by a business owner for representing what Ms. Wilkinson believes to be vile governmental policies, or to further escalate the vitriol, as we have now seen with much public discussion, hand-wringing, finger-pointing, and the usual ‘whataboutisms’ that beset what passes as public ‘debate’ these days?
Indeed, Mrs. Sanders outed herself,…as just another target of scorn being heaped upon agent provocateurs of the Trump Administration; one with a national platform as Press Secretary to the most ‘fact-challenged’ president in American history. Never forget, Sarah — you work for us after all, and ‘We the People’ have not been pleased by your churlish performance, nor your many outright lies told at Trump’s command.
But, boycotts are as American as good old American apple pie; and isn’t that what this really is,…a boycott against nativist (i.e., racist) extremism that now even threatens American democracy? A boycott of a shape-shifting Administration that cannot get its story straight, relative to the statistical data on immigration and immigrant crime; led by a president with a long, sad record relative to race and race-baiting (e.g., housing discrimination; the Central Park Five; Birtherism; Mexican “rapists;” MS-13 hysteria).
And yes; a threat to American democracy and the rule of law, in that President Trump — after suffering sheer incompetence of his own making, and issuing a conflicted, convoluted Executive Order on ‘Zero Tolerance’ that merely exacerbates an already divisive issue — now rails against a media and opposition party demanding transparency (and accountability) ; immigration judges (grossly exaggerating the number needed) and the legal due process historically accorded all immigrants who have sought asylum in America.
The incident involving the restaurant owner and Sanders, dealt with her own moral outrage, expressed in the only manner (currently) legally open to her as a businessperson — namely, a polite request that Mrs. Sanders leave the restaurant quietly, peacefully, and ‘comped’ the price of food (cheese platters already served) for her inconvenience. In fact, it was a reverse boycott of the appointed spokesperson of the Trump Administration and Trumpism in general,…carried out by one American citizen with a profoundly felt moral conscience.
But, back to Morning Joe. The panel spent the first half-hour debating whether Sarah Sanders being ‘86'd’ (a time-honored restaurant code for banning unwanted guests) from the Red Hen was appropriate or not. Show host, former Republican congressman, Joe Scarborough opined in opposition to the ban by the restaurant owner. Then,…he spent much of the remaining two and a half hours reciting a litany of outrageous, racist comments, behavior and policies advanced by the Trump Administration,…including his most recent outrageous abuse of brown-skinned infants and toddlers at our southern border, still facing spartan — if not cruel — indeterminate detention in federal custody, separated from worried parents and loved ones! You know,…Republican ‘family values.’
To be sure, earlier incidents reported by the media were classic examples of “public shaming” — by fellow patrons,…also fed up with the divisive, politically-driven racism fanned by this Administration. Those incidents involved DHS Secretary, Kristjen Neilson, and Stephen Miller, Trump’s speech writer, White House architect of Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ and now, family separation as a base-pleasing ‘deterrent’ to the “millions of immigrants” perched on our border, awaiting the Democratic Party’s bat signal,…to overrun America! With taco trucks on every corner.
As for me; if you willingly work for a racist, wannabe Fascist dictator — or deign to facilitate his racism and his all-out assault on American institutions; the Constitution; a Free Press; the judiciary; the rule of law; and basic human decency — then, buckle up, cupcakes. The more #CadetBonespurs tries to ‘unwind’ America back to some Trump-imagined ‘Fatherland’ — the more the #Resistance will resort to outright public contempt. It should come with the territory. After all….not too many generations back — we ALL fought this sort of thing!
To devoted Trumpsters, or those thinking we should be kinder to the racists and Fascists in our midst, I would remind them: Whenever they finally close the book on the lurid Trump Chapter in world history; “I was just following orders” will not be a very compelling defense,…nor a sympathetic epitaph.