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Want to Ban Trump Staff from Your Business?
Ban them for actions, not for status
I worked as a bartender for many years, and it was my pleasure to shut off obnoxiously drunk people and to permanently bar would-be customers who persisted in making life unpleasant for others.
“You’re done,” I’d say to the obnoxious, and “Now you’re barred,” to the obnoxious who persisted.
Private businesses in America have the right to refuse business to individual people who behave badly and threaten their business. This means that if Sarah Huckabee Sanders behaves badly — by lying on national television over and over again, for example — thereby alienating your customer base, you have the right to refuse to serve her.
Just as a business has the right to refuse service to a person who screams obscenities at other customers, a business can refuse service to Kirstjen Nielsen, who lied to the American public, falsely stating that “Mr. Trump’s family separation strategy was not administration policy, wrongly insisting it was the result of legal ‘loopholes’ that only Congress can fix.” But only if Nielsen’s actions pose a threat to your relationships with your customers, and by extension, your profits.
What private businesses cannot do is discriminate based on status.