The Right to a Peaceful Dinner

The Trump-loving media weren’t outraged when a threatening crowd gathered outside the house of an Atlanta election worker in the fall of 2020 and agitators also pounded on the door of her mother’s house. Donald Trump tossed the names of Wandrea Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman into the public arena, alleging they had personally falsified the results of the presidential election in Georgia. The evidence was a video that showed ballots being continuously added from underneath a table while votes were being counted. Officials explained, to no avail, that they stored valid ballots in a box below the table. People who backed the fraud conspiracy relentlessly claimed that the two Black women sneaked fake ballots into the boxes. Afterward, Shaye Moss didn’t dare go outside, couldn’t use her name, gained weight and fell into a depression, while her mother had to relocate for a time. Nevertheless, the understanding right-wing commentators insisted that emotions were running high and people don’t like to be “deceived.”

The tone was different back in 2018 when the owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, politely asked Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to leave for political reasons. Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson was called everything but normal; even the president joined the outraged chorus. Then last week, an ultraconservative member of the Supreme Court was dining at Morton’s Steakhouse in Washington, D.C., when a group of protesters supporting women’s rights stormed in. Brett Kavanaugh reportedly didn’t notice, finished his roast beef and left before dessert. The right-wing press considered this to be atrocious behavior, too, and complained about the approving remarks from the White House and certain Democratic politicians about the incident.

Of course, the situation isn’t funny. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, tempers are now flaring among liberals. It is getting to the point in America where it takes courage for someone not to own a gun. It would be foolish to think that there are dangerous people only on the right. A man was recently detained near Kavanaugh’s home who told police that he intended to kill the justice.

According to a June survey, 52% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats expect a civil war to take place in the United States during their lifetime, and 26% of respondents believe political violence is justified. The American Civil War of 1861-1865 was the deadliest armed conflict in U.S. history, killing more than 1 million people, some 3% of the country’s population at the time. In today’s terms that would be 10 million, given the advancements in weapons.

Politicians speak carelessly elsewhere, too, just as the highest court’s justices do, with decisions that determine people’s future. They really shouldn’t, because if all hell breaks loose, the devil will take them too. Everyone has a right to a peaceful dinner, especially ordinary citizens.