Florist who refused to serve Trump supporters closes shop amid fierce backlash

A Memphis florist said she didn’t want to serve supporters of Donald Trump. Now she’s not serving anyone else either.

Kristin Wolter has closed her shop for the rest of the week “due to threats to me and my business,” according to a statement made on the now-private Instagram account of Everbloom Design.

“I knew standing up for what I believe in would have consequences,” she wrote, according to an account in the New York Post. “They are showing their true colors and lack of decency and humanity.”

The backlash began over an earlier Instagram video in which Ms. Wolter said MAGA backers were unwelcome in her store.

“I won’t do business with people who support the president-elect,” the flower shop owner said. “I need to create a safe place for me, my staff, and my family.”

Afterward, her voicemail was anything but a safe space.

On Monday, she shared on Instagram some of the messages that called her, among much else, obscene terms for a specifically female anatomical part and a female dog.

One of the more printable messages she played came from Chicago, telling her to take her “ugly glasses and your disgusting family and go cry because we won. We won. This is MAGA country for at least four years. Suck it up, buttercup.”

Some of the callers threatened lawsuits against Ms. Wolter for discrimination, but political persuasion, unlike race or sex, is not a protected category under Tennessee law.

All of Everbloom Design’s social media pages are now private, but Ms. Wolter had repeatedly made known her disdain for Mr. Trump’s supporters throughout the campaign before the latest post went viral.

The Post cited one Instagram post made two days after Mr. Trump came within a literal inch of being assassinated in July at a Pennsylvania rally.

“I will make it perfectly clear. I will not do any business with or support anyone that supports Trump. The lives of my children depends on it,” she wrote.