Our nation needs to pull back from the brink and stop the name calling, the calls for harassment as a political tactic, the characterization of those with whom we disagree as enemies rather than as fellow Americans with a different point of view.

Stick to the topic and debate the merits of differing policy ideas. Call out lies when you hear them, condemn actions you consider inappropriate, and use the democratic process to fight for the policy changes you consider appropriate. Then work to elect the people you feel can best implement those policies.

But let us all conduct ourselves civilly.

The alternative is to steadily degrade our politics into a clash of insults instead of ideas, reaching a point in which we turn deaf to counterarguments because they come from “them.” People have become all too comfortable with finding the small flaws in their opponent’s position, while being unwilling to see the massive gaps in their own logic, to paraphrase Matthew.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be able to go to any restaurant, enjoy a meal and leave without incident. That’s not what happened Friday night, of course, when Sanders dined at a Virginia restaurant. The owner asked Sanders to leave because of the work Sanders does defending Trump and his policies.

"This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals," restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson told reporters about why she asked Sanders to exit.

Now there is a slippery slope.

Do we break down into dining at respective pro-life and pro-choice restaurants; gather at our for or against the death penalty shopping centers; congregate in our respective movie theaters depending on whether we support a particular military intervention or see it as immoral?

There is plenty of overlap between morality and politics. Wilkinson had a constitutional right to refuse to serve a guest she considered immoral because of her politics, just as did the baker who refused to sell a cake for a gay wedding he considered immoral (so ruled the U.S. Supreme Court). But that doesn’t make either of their actions appropriate.

If acclaimed actor Robert De Niro can’t come up with more than “F-Trump” to articulate his disagreements with the president, he should stick with scripts. As Christine Emba, who writes commentary for the Washington Post, well put it, “Statements such as these are content-less, and thus useless. They are sound and fury, signifying nothing — inflammatory eruptions that degrade the quality of existing discussion without building anything in its place.”

At a Los Angeles rally on Saturday, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., embraced harassment politics.

“If you see anybody from the Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them,” Waters said.

She re-enforced the message during a Sunday appearance on MSNBC. “For these members of his Cabinet, who remain and try to defend him, they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, to be able to stop at a gas station, to be able to shop at a department store,” Waters said then.

Would this advice to harass extend to anyone wearing a red MAGA hat or using a pro-Trump bumper sticker?

This is dangerous talk.

“That's not right. That's not American," rightly said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of Waters’ call to harass political opponents.

Many on the left counter with the argument that Trump started it. His candidacy and his conduct as president have played a major role in the decline of our civil discourse. Trump creates insulting names for his political opponents, often personal in nature. He condemns entire groups with broad strokes. Trump promised his supporters legal assistance if they roughed up hecklers at rallies. He lies and he bullies.

It is appropriate to condemn such behavior. But remember what our mothers taught us: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.