They have seen the blowback and they’re scared spitless. Fear the Internet.
There's very little substative blowback. The one star reviews will all be deleted. Plenty of leftists will trek a couple hours from DC down to Lexington VA to patronize the bigots. What the Post actually fears is that the vast majority of Americans do not like bigotry in any form. They aren't blowing back against bigots, but instead they will vote out any politicians who support that kind of bigotry.