Mobs on the Menu for Cruz

Politics, chef Fabio Trabocchi said, are like elbows — “best left off the dining table.” Tell that to the zealots on the Left, who seem bent on taking their beef with Republicans to every restaurant in the union.

Two nights ago, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) joined a club no Republican wants to be a part of: the target of dining flash mobs. Unfortunately for him and his wife, Heidi, this wild new form of protest — chasing conservatives away from their meals — is becoming the norm for Trump’s opponents. Like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen, White House advisor Stephen Miller, state attorney general Pam Bondi (R-Fla.), and Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla.) before them, the Cruzes just wanted to eat in peace. Instead, they couldn’t even sit down at D.C.’s Fiola after a dozen raving Trump opponents encircled them and started yelling about his support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

“We believe survivors!” a dozen voices screamed in unison. “Fascist, racist, anti-gay!” one said. Another called him a “piece of filth.” On a video the group called “Smash Racism” proudly posted, you can see the restaurant staff looking on in shock. “We’re not trained to deal with this,” Fiola’s co-owner, Maria Trabocchi, later told the Washington Post. “How do you deal with things like this? It’s crazy times.” Employees called the police, but not before the Cruzes endured a barrage of insults. “God bless,” Cruz told the crowd. “Can you let my wife through?”

Trabocchi said the restaurant has served both parties proudly for years — and will continue to do so. But he does worry: what will happen if things turn violent? That’s a legitimate concern now after the group released this statement: “This is a message to Ted Cruz, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump and the rest of the racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic right-wing scum… You are not safe. We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others.”

The rallying cry of Democratic leaders — “to get up in the face of some congresspeople” as Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — isn’t shaming the Right, it’s exposing the viciousness of the Left. How many conservatives disrupted former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s dinner after she issued the HHS mandate? Or pushed around DOD Secretary Ash Carter when his social policies jeopardized the military? How many conservatives turned congressional baseball practices into gun fights — or walked into a liberal organization with enough ammunition to kill the whole staff?

If you’re looking for the real hate — it’s on your Left!

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Tony Perkins Washington Update. It is republished with permission.

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