3/12/19
Are you a conservative who is wary of dining out while wearing your red “Make America Great Again” hat? Do you wish you knew where you could freely sport a “Trump 2020” shirt while out running errands? There’s an app for that. Earlier this month, an Oklahoma developer launched “63red Safe,” described as “an app to keep conservatives safe as they eat and shop.” The idea, according to founder Scott Wallace, is to “simply get these politics out of restaurants and businesses” — by gauging whether they would be friendly to conservatives. “Reviews of local restaurant and businesses from a conservative perspective, helping [ensure] you’re safe when you shop and eat!” reads the app’s description in the Google Play store. Wallace, who describes himself as a lifelong Republican, said he conceived the idea in November, when he was out with his youngest child and considered buying “one of those MAGA hats.” Then he wondered if it would make them targets for harassment, even in Oklahoma City. Just a few months before, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders had been asked to leave the Red Hen, a farm-to-table restaurant in western Virginia, because of her work for President Trump, he noted. "I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do,’ " Wallace told The Washington Post in a phone interview Monday, referring to openly displaying his support for Trump. “That was very uncomfortable for me. I don’t want to be a nation where putting Che Guevara on a T-shirt … or wearing a MAGA hat … makes you a target.” So he and two associates set out to develop something like a Yelp app, one that would evaluate establishments based on four questions:
- Does this business serve persons of every political belief?
- Will this business protect its customers if they are attacked for political reasons?
- Does this business allow legal concealed carry under this state’s laws?
- Does this business avoid politics in its ads and social media postings?
“The questions, as you read through them, are designed to be apolitical,” Wallace said. But he admits the aim is ultimately to help identify whether businesses are “safe” for conservatives. Wallace said he is ignoring the hate mail and “annoyed tweets” the company has received and is focusing on a bigger picture: creating apps under the 63red umbrella aimed at younger conservatives so the brand can “be a factor in the 2020 elections, both at the local and national level.” He also emphasized that there is no hidden message or conspiracy theory behind the app’s name, which he chose at random. “Everyone asks. It means nothing at all, absolutely nothing,” he said. “It’s a good-looking logo. It’s a unique name.”
