Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.
Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

To recap: Over the weekend, the owner of a Virginia restaurant kicked Sarah Huckabee Sanders out because of her work on the front lines of an “inhumane and unethical” administration. This launched oh so many think-tweets, and also this reply from President Trump.

Also over the weekend, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters told a crowd at a rally: "If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store (or) at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."

Trump, of course, replied to that, too, and now we're in the thick of a debate over whether shunning Trumpers actually helps rally Trump's base to his side (as Trump seems to believe it does), and whether that even matters.

"These episodes, which have gone viral on social media, risk backfiring by playing into Trump’s hands," warns James Hohmann. "It supercharges the president’s sense of grievance and gives fodder for the argument, made in his stump speech, that he and his followers are disrespected. In a backlash to the backlash, there’s evidence in the polls of Republicans rallying around the flag. The nastiness could also alienate and depress middle-of-the-road independents who prize pluralism."

Max Boot argues that "to save our country, we need to practice heroic self-restraint and courageous civility in the face of grievous provocation."

Pushing in the other direction, Jennifer Rubin argues that "it is not altogether a bad thing to show those who think they’re exempt from personal responsibility that their actions bring scorn, exclusion and rejection. If you don’t want to provoke wrath, don’t continue to work for someone whose cruel and inhumane treatment of others rivals the internment of U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II."

And those are just three opinions from one publication, The Washington Post. Happy Monday! There are 939 days left until Trump's first term is over.