Is it hypocritical for Trump administration staffers to eat at a Mexican restaurant?
[Stephen Miller] decided on Espita Mezcaleria in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington D.C., whose menu features dishes from southern Mexico, including a vegetarian mole verde for $22 and fish tacos “to share” for $35. A fellow diner called him a “real-life fascist.”
Two days later, U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, who helps oversee the implementation of “zero tolerance,” had a similar south of the border craving.
A group of Democratic Soclialists, including a paralegal with DoJ, protested against Nielsen inside the restaurant, forcing her to leave.
And the owners of a restaurant in Virginia told press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that she was unwelcome and should leave. No inapt analogies to bakers and gay wedding cakes, please.
There were lines that weren’t crossed in the past. It’s not because the law forbade such action. It didn’t. It’s not because people didn’t harbor hatred or shriek the sky was falling. They did. These were the unwritten traditions, some might chalk them up to civility but that’s too loaded a word today as well, of keeping politics separate from private lives. Even the most hated politician, who was doing the most horrible thing ever, was left alone when he was eating a meal, with his family, taking some time to himself.
Now everything is fair game. There is no sanctuary from the storm.
To the insipid, this is understandable and acceptable, since whoever they hate deserves to be hated, and the hated deserve to be made miserable at all times. It’s no longer that something must be done, but that something must be done no matter what. The traditions, like kids are out of bounds, or you don’t speak ill of the dead, must give way to the outrage. In the minds of the unduly passionate, it’s not that these traditions are wrong or shouldn’t exist, but the target of their fury is so deserving, so evil, that it cannot be contained.
To note that this is unlikely to be acceptable when the other edge of the sword meets those whom they don’t hate is obvious. It only applies to the people you despise, since obviously the people you like aren’t deserving, which is why you don’t hate them.
There is little doubt that Stephen Miller makes a great target. What smarmy little jerk doesn’t? But even he needs to eat, and as awful as he may be, should be allowed to eat in peace. As much as you may feel he’s so awful, so horrible, that it transcends any norms of separating the public and private lives of people involved in politics, this rationalization holds true for every administration that’s held office. There is always someone who hates them, who believe they’re the personification of evil and that they should enjoy not a second of peace, not a bite of burrito, without being confronted by those who wish them ill.
When people internalize the insanely overheated rhetoric, that a president is “literally Hitler,” his supporters are Nazis and they must be stopped, no matter what, the next step is violence. When there are no norms worthy of respect because this time, this president, this administration is bringing the Apocalypse, some nutjob will act upon it and be the martyr to the cause. He will see the applause shown the protesters who won’t let Nielsen eat a meal, the restaurant owner who would throw Sander’s family out, and will take it that one baby step farther.
And hard as it is to imagine, when the tide turns, these norms of letting public officials have unmolested private lives will be gone when the other team, which is obviously wrong, do the same to the good guys who replaced the terrible guys. Or even worse, no good guys will want the job because they fear that they will never be able to enjoy a moment of quiet, feel secure that their children won’t be molested by the other team, if there is no respect for our tradition of leaving public officials alone in their private times.
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