United States of intolerance

The case for breaking bread together, not ejecting

The expulsion of Sarah Huckabee Sanders from a Virginia restaurant last weekend will be run though the inevitable left and right propaganda machines.

The right will see it as bullying and the left as a polite, nay classy, stand for principle.

The left will say that freedom of association means that a business owner can refuse to serve any person or ask any person to leave the premises, so long as the owner is not discriminating based on race or sexual orientation.

And the right will say: Wait a minute! What about the Christian cakemaker? All of the sudden you are for the rights of businesspeople? What about Hobby Lobby and Chickfil-A?

But maybe this is really about common sense, or the lack thereof.

Common sense, and its cousins, common courtesy and common decency, cut across concepts and abstractions and the cultural fads of the moment.

Ms. Sanders, according to her father, went home after the ejection, but the rest of her party was followed across the street by the restaurant owner, to another restaurant, where the chastisement continued. This was as nothing compared to the abuse heaped upon Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was surrounded by a shouting mob as she attempted to dine out in Washington. The video footage of that moment is chilling.

And Ms. Sanders claims that the kidnapping of her children was advocated on social media.

Are we really going to descend to this? Are we going to start refusing theater seats, or Uber rides, or concert tickets on the basis of political affiliation?

Not if we exercise our common sense of decency and proportion.

For there is a slippery slope. If a restaurant owner really feels she is upholding “honesty, compassion and co-operation,” by ejecting someone from a restaurant for working for Donald Trump, why not do the same for anyone who voted for him? Or even someone who thinks the president is often wrong, but occasionally right, on policy?

The Trump delusion is easily described: If you are not against him, fiercely against him, you are for him. And no punishment is too great for that thought crime.

Indeed, wearing a red MAGA hat might get you thrown out of your church. Ask Jeff Sessions, who works for a president who regularly announces he does not even like him. Mr. Sessions just got officially censored by 600 United Methodists.

What has become of the United States of Tolerance, where everyone was entitled to his or her opinion? So what if you believed something your neighbor thought half-baked?

In that country Jack Kennedy drank with Richard Nixon after hours; and Barry Goldwater and Eugene McCarthy took turns hosting “the children’s hour” in their Senate offices each day Congress was in session; and Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan shared Irish jokes and ribbed each other mercilessly.

Where is the country in which siblings and neighbors sometimes disagreed with each other, 100 percent, on politics but shared Thanksgiving happily?

Do we really want everything to be about politics and Donald Trump, even dinner out; even a chicken sandwich?

A network talking head asked, on the air: Should a Trump staffer really be accepted into polite society? She was serious. And no one on the show had the guts to answer: Yes!

We hear much about “normalizing” unpresidential behavior. How about normalizing intolerance?

Especially in the name of tolerance?

Let’s be clear, being tossed from a tony restaurant is not the moral equivalent of racial discrimination in the South in the last century. Not even close. But shunning is an expression of dehumanization. And while Ms. Sanders went about her life, she was the object of an act of contempt and incivility, in a society bubbling over with contempt and incivility

Do we really want to take this stupidity, this madness, to the next level?

That level has already been glimpsed — in the words of the Hollywood actor who wrote: “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles ...”

Think of a strong liberal, maybe Barack Obama. Or maybe Eleanor Roosevelt. Was either person rude or insulting to persons on the other side of the political divide? Think of a strong conservative. Maybe Ronald Reagan. Maybe Bill Buckley. Mr. Reagan was the ultimate courtly gentleman. Mr. Buckley sought out liberals, not only to debate, but to befriend.

And then ask yourself what an act of righteous rudeness could possibly do to improve immigration policy or life on the border for illegal immigrants and their children.

Our current immigration policy is both irrational and inhumane. And that has been true for years. We need reform, which should include expanded legal immigration, a path to citizenship for illegals already in our country, and enhanced border security (yes, a wall).

But if you truly care about immigrant children, work for a new policy. Or give to a relief agency. Or go to the border yourself with food, water and clothing. (Maybe Peter Fonda is there now. Or maybe he is seated in a restaurant in Beverly Hills, where he will be allowed to finish his soup and drink his wine.)

If you care about this country, and you are a conservative, take a liberal to lunch, at a place you know you both will be served, and listen to him. If you are a liberal, hug a Republican.