Why are people on the left always so angry? And what makes them think they can take that anger out on anyone who disagrees with them, with shocking and callous impunity?
This was always a bit of a head-scratcher, but it’s gotten much worse in the Age of Trump. In the 30+ years I worked in medical manufacturing, I had an ironclad rule: I would not talk politics at work. Not because I was afraid of being challenged, not because I couldn’t argue my side effectively, but because it interfered with getting the work done. Politics and work, unless political commentary is your work, is a bad combination.
This brings me to Wisconsin, and a man named Chad Kodanko, who was the co-owner of a small local restaurant and, apparently, an angry leftist.
On Dec. 12, Husby’s Food & Spirits employee Robert Meredith says he left his Charlie Kirk sweatshirt on a hook at work.
“Somebody had told me, ‘Hey, where is your hoodie at?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know — probably at my house?'” Meredith said. “He said, ‘No, it’s probably not.'”
Meredith says he wasn’t provided many details, but was told Husby’s co-owner, Chad Kodanko, burned his Kirk sweatshirt.
“It was talking politics in a bar and led to that, which is never good,” said Meredith, who also says he was told there is a video of the incident, but he has not seen it.
Let’s apply a little position reversal thought experiment, here. Imagine if this were a Republican business owner (or co-owner). Imagine if an employee came in, not protesting, not shouting out his political opinions, but just wearing a Bernie Sanders hoodie. He doesn’t wear it while working; he just hangs it on a hook and goes to work. Imagine then that the Republican business owner takes that hoodie and burns it in front of several employees. Imagine the outcry.
When worn on the other foot, the shoe pinches. But this time, the shirt-burner did face consequences, possibly costly ones.
Meredith says politics isn’t a normal topic at Husby’s, but according to Paul Kwiatkowski, word of the incident spread quickly in Door County.
“We’re talking about a guy who was assassinated 16 weeks ago, and his shirt that is symbolic of him, being burned — and not to mention, it also had an American flag on it,” said Kwiatkowski, a Fish Creek resident.
Kwiatkowski wrote a letter to the Sister Bay Village Board, making sure it was aware of what happened, as Kodanko was a trustee. On Monday, the village announced Kodanko had resigned.
I would bet money that his resignation was prompted by his fellow trustees, as his presence had suddenly become toxic. But that wasn’t the only consequence:
Kodanko is part of an ownership group. We wanted to interview one of the other owners, but we were told no one was available. We were also told the owners were meeting Monday. They put a statement on social media.
Part of that statement says the other owners’, “priority is to make sure Husby’s remains a welcoming place.” They say Kodanko will be bought out of the ownership group, meetings were held with the affected employee and the rest of the staff, and training will be held to prevent a situation like this from happening again.
So, he also lost a stake in a presumably profitable business. Good. An update to the story states that Robert Meredith has also put in his two weeks’ notice and will be leaving Husby’s, and we can scarcely blame him; we wish him every success in finding new employment.
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This is an appropriate response to what was an unhinged act of arrogant presumption. And, yes, if the situation had been reversed, as in the scenario above, this still would have been an appropriate response to an unhinged act of arrogant presumption. Robert Meredith wasn’t wearing the hoodie in front of customers, according to this report; he wore it to work, as one might expect from any item of outerwear in that part of the country, and properly hung the hoodie up before going to work. He has a First Amendment right to wear a piece of outerwear expressing a political opinion, and while his employer has every right to insist he not do so in the workplace, he was not wearing it while working.
Chad Kodanko was evidently outraged by the mere existence of that shirt, which represented nothing more than a young husband and father who did nothing more than talk with people, to attempt to persuade, and who was assassinated for it. Kodanko was evidently so angered that he took his employee’s hoodie, his private property, and destroyed it, in an act that demonstrates a level of anger and arrogance that’s difficult to understand – unless you’re a leftist.
Now he counts the cost. That’s manifestly a good thing.
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