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Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week she was asked to leave The Croissanterie in Little Rock after the restaurant’s owner told a member of her security detail that her presence made employees feel “threatened,” a claim that quickly became national fodder and highlighted the raw politicization of ordinary public life. Sanders posted about the incident on X, noting that Arkansans are known for hospitality and lamenting that the eatery “didn’t meet that standard,” while insisting her administration will focus on lifting people up, not tearing anyone down.
Employees of The Croissanterie responded defiantly, with at least one staffer posting proudly on social media that the team stood by the decision and would do it again, making clear this was not merely a table-time dispute but a conscious political choice by the restaurant. That response underlines how hospitality has been turned into activism in many pockets of our country, where a server’s comfort is now invoked as a pretext for public shaming.
This is not new theater. The spectacle of political staffers being shunned by restaurants has precedent going back to 2018, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen in Virginia — an episode that sparked national debate about civility, free speech, and whether private businesses should be open arenas for political retribution. Conservatives remember how that incident was treated as a badge of honor by the left, and now the lesson seems to have been learned all too well by small-business operators eager to virtue-signal.
Americans who believe in decency and fair treatment should be alarmed at the normalization of this behavior. When private establishments start policing whom they’ll host because of political disagreement, we inch closer to a civic climate where disagreement is met with exclusion, not debate; where standing for conservative values makes you a target for public humiliation rather than an invited guest. The right shouldn’t be surprised to see its leaders pushed into this corner, but we should be relentless in defending the dignity of peaceful political participation.
Gov. Sanders handled the fallout the right way — calling the country to better standards while reminding voters that culture wars don’t justify cruelty. Conservatives should answer by doubling down on common-sense virtues: support businesses that welcome all customers, amplify voices that champion free association without weaponizing hospitality, and call out the double standard when public servants are treated as pariahs for their politics. The market and the ballot box remain our strongest tools against this new intolerance, and hardworking Americans should use both.
