Let the Trump folks eat their dinner, Democrats

Leaving their work at the office has become a bigger challenge for President Donald Trump's top officials.

Last Friday night, for example, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, before she and her family had finished their cheese plate appetizers -- because, she was told, she works for "an inhumane and unethical administration." At least, according to news reports, they weren't charged for the cheese plate.

Earlier that day, protesters outside the Alexandria, Virginia, home of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen blasted a recording of crying migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

A couple of nights before that, chanting protesters from the Democratic Socialists of America, reportedly tipped off by other diners, caused Nielsen to leave dinner early at a Mexican restaurant in Washington.

The New York Post reported earlier that day that Stephen Miller, President Trump's senior adviser behind the "zero-tolerance" policy, had been called a "fascist" earlier in the week at another Mexican restaurant in the city. Miller didn't respond to the harassment, the Post said, and he didn't leave either.

I would be lying if I didn't admit to a profound feeling that Team Trump had it coming, not for their political beliefs but for their actual implementation of a policy that -- as the world has witnessed -- recklessly separated more than 2,000 kids from their parents without a plan for how those families might ever be reunited.

That's how our proudly unpredictable president operates. He gets a notion, perhaps while watching a morning show on his beloved Fox News Channel, and everyone else involved has to move heaven and earth to make his notion happen.

Or, as Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who's not running again so he can speak freely, described Trump's implementation of the new immigration policy, "ready, fire, aim."

However, my better judgment says for a number of reasons, nah, let 'em eat in peace. To avoid risking a backlash, Democrats and other progressives should leave the rude politics to specialists, like Trump, who often conducts his job like a troll in chief.

I can't go along with Rep. Maxine Waters' call for more harassment of Trump administration officials, even with the noble aim of protesting an inhumane immigration policy.

"If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd," the California Democrat said last weekend at a Los Angeles rally and again on Sunday on MSNBC. "And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere. We've got to get the children connected to their parents."

Fine. But there are smart ways and not-very-smart ways to pursue that aim. As former Republican political consultant Steve Schmidt, who recently left the Grand Old Party to protest Trump's immigration policies, once said, tussling with Trump is like wrestling with a pig: "You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it."

Trump gave a demonstration on Monday morning of how, when Waters goes low, Trump goes lower. "Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party," Trump tweeted. "She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!"

Yeah, Max. Never mind that you didn't really say what our gangster in chief says you said.

For the record, Waters did not call for physical "harm" to Trump administration officials or harassment of his supporters. And, instead of defending Waters, House Minority Leader Pelosi called her fellow California Democrat's comments "unacceptable," even as she blamed Trump's "daily lack of civility" for provoking the protests that Waters had in mind.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, went further. Calling Waters' approach "not American," he advised, "The best solution: win elections."

You said it, senator. As Trump continues to appeal almost exclusively to his adoring base, Democrats have more opportunities to tackle problems with positive policies and programs, not just protests.

=========

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)