Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!

No, not that wall. The one that seems to be veining all across America dividing otherwise solid citizens from other solid citizens of a slightly different ilk.

It’s a wall built of acrimony and rancor and good old-fashioned American hate. On the one side we find shouters who emulate their boss, the POTUS, most of whom just want to crow about the business of Making America Great Again and seem to be succeeding. On the other we see a growing army of doubters who wish Maxine Waters would shut up but nevertheless agree that she has a point. Shouters and doubters! – A great way to frame the debate.

Incivility has spread like a prairie fire this week.   There were boisterous protests against Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Trump advisor Stephen Miller as they ate in different Mexican restaurants in the Washington area.  In fact, a group of chanting protesters gathered outside Miller’s Washington D.C. apartment first.  The crowd circulated “Wanted” flyers expressing the contention that Miller is guilty of “crimes against humanity,” among other things.

The nexus seemed to be the separation of illegal families at the border – Very bad optics for the President and he moved quickly to right the wrong that wasn’t precisely his fault.

The doubters wear blue socks, the shouters prefer red. There are red states and blue states and various shades between. Perhaps that red thing is what lured Sarah Sanders to The Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia last week where she promptly was shown the door by a proprietor who chased the Sanders family down the street tossing perfectly delicious epithets and fried chicken pieces at them. Apparently, the owner prefers bluebloods and Democrats so, to avoid future confusion, she might rename her joint The Blue Hen.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), averred that members of the Trump administration should be confronted and accosted in their daily lives at every turn.   Her recent raves at everything Trump, have caught the attention of House leaders who met in worried session Tuesday night to figure out whether she should be censored. Not for shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre exactly; no, it’s about mob violence and Waters’ apparent gleeful incitement.

The fourteen term congresswoman appears to be in violation of House rules, specifically the one (House Rule 23, clause 1.), that states: “A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.”  The public shaming of Trump administration officials in restaurants has triggered an internal debate among Democrats over how far they should go in confronting the president and his policies.  The District of Columbia air is electric with anger, this is no summer storm.

Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. – no wallflower in the political arena –condemned Waters: “I strongly disagree with those who advocate harassing folks if they don’t agree with you. … No one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That’s not right. That’s not American.”

So what next? Some American whacked off the head off a bird (red or blue we don’t know) and left its burning carcass on the porch of a senior DHS (Department of Homeland Security) official living in Washington, D.C.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was harassed and heckled as she attended a movie (about Mr. Rogers) in Florida. President Trump’s opponents are even posting names and addresses of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents on the Internet, placing their lives and the lives of their families at risk.

Those who are in such lather over border policy or whatever are apparently hoping their minatory screed will cause Humpty Trumpty to fall, but they might have a long wait. The ranks of the Deplorables are growing and many of them are bricklayers. The anguish of our people in this summer of hatefulness is palpable and dangerous. Each new mob chant is just another brick in the wall.

On Tuesday evening the Tweeter in Chief missed a chance to step back and cool things down a little. Instead, he chirped something about, “Not on my watch.”

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” inveighed Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate On June 12, 1987. So Robust was Reagan’s moral authority that two and a half years later The Berlin Wall  came down and thirteen months after that, Gorby resigned.  The USSR dissolved.

But alas, Donald Trump is not the complete President. It’s too bad because he is almost the right man at the right time to drain the swamp; his accomplishments to date are remarkable and they seem to have ignited a genuine reawakening among the crowd that counts – the money people. But his character will forever be stained by that unusual way of greeting a woman getting off the bus, his inability to let any slight or insult skate, braggadocio substituted for integrity, a fifth grade vocabulary where an adult’s is required, and continual lack of proof that he has read even one of the world’s greatest books.

Tonight Mr. Trump has a singular opportunity. Could he possibly step out of character and remove just one brick?   Someone must begin dismantling the wall of insolence before it falls of its own weight and crushes us all.