Trumpenfreude strikes another business that made anti-Trump waves

Trumpenfreude, which I believe is a word that Don Surber coined, happens when we get a warm glow learning about people who struck out at Trump or those close to him and, instead, managed to destroy themselves. While we should feel guilty about regular schadenfreude (e.g., delighting in other people’s misery), Trumpenfreude is something to be celebrated. The latest, somewhat delayed, comeuppance for a Trump hater is The Red Hen, the restaurant that, in 2018, proudly ejected Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family in the middle of their meal.

At the time, the mainstream media, of course, lapped up the story of the brave restaurateur:

Stephanie Wilkinson tells the Washington Post that her business has thrived for 10 years because she’s kept politics off the menu in a town that has been deeply divided over political issues. But when President Donald Trump‘s press secretary came into the Red Hen with her family on Friday evening, Wilkinson says she felt compelled to take a stand.

“I’m not a huge fan of confrontation,” Wilkinson said. “I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

Wilkinson explains that her staff initially seated Sanders and her family and served them cheese plates before the chef called Wilkinson for advice on how to proceed.

Wilkinson, who was at home that evening, came into the restaurant and talked the issue over with her staff. She says they all objected to Sanders’ defense of Trump’s since-reversed child separation policy and his desire to ban transgender people from the military. Wilkinson says she personally believes that Sanders works for an “inhumane and unethical” administration and defends the president’s cruelest policies.

But Wilkinson left the decision up to her staff. She says she told them, “Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave. They said ‘yes.’ ”

Giving Wilkinson the floor to account for her discriminatory conduct wasn’t enough, though. On the anniversary of Sanders’ ousting, the Washington Post gave her room on the editorial page to expand upon the “new rules” for restaurants.

Wilkinson explained that she approves of the rules barring discrimination for race, religion, country of national origin, etc., but when it comes to bad ideas, a business owner should still get a say: “[I]f you’re an unsavory individual — of whatever persuasion or affiliation — we have no legal or moral obligation to do business with you.” Wilkinson then explains that “at bottom this isn’t about politics. It’s about values, and accountability to values, in business.”

Here’s something that may surprise you: I agree with her completely. While neither the government nor monopolistic businesses (e.g., social media or the only hotel in town), both of which have complete control over the marketplace, should be allowed to discriminate, other businesses should be able to put their values front and center.

For example, bakers shouldn’t be forced to make cakes for same-sex marriages, and restaurants shouldn’t have to serve Nazis. You’ll make more money if you serve or sell to all comers, but there are things more important than money.

However, once you decide to lead with your values, it helps if your values are the correct ones. Given that Trump’s policies were infinitely more humane than Obama’s and Biden’s, that they served Americans much better, and that individual liberty with a light government hand really was Trump’s byword, I would argue that Wilkinson got things very, very wrong.

Moreover, a whole lot of Americans who support strong borders, individual liberty, and the other policies Trump advanced felt that if Trump staffers weren’t welcome at the Red Hen, it wasn’t their kind of restaurant. That fact, combined with the dismal Biden economy and, perhaps, the lockdowns that Democrats supported during COVID, may explain why the Red Hen is no more:

The owners of Lexington, Virginia’s Red Hen restaurant have announced that the business will shutter and a new restaurant with a new name will pop up in its place. The announcement comes several years after The Red Hen faced massive scrutiny for removing Trump Administration Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family from the premises in the middle of their meal after triggered left-wing employees called the restaurant’s left-wing owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, requesting that she take action to remove the family from their midst.

The people have spoken, and I can only say that it’s a gloat-worthy thing when Trumpenfreude strikes again.

Image: The Red Hen restaurant by Artaxerxes. CC BY-SA 4.0.