Were we supposed to like Sarah Bunting?

I did NOT find her likeable. Although she had a few good moments (speaking to Rose at the school, tutoring Daisy), the dinner scenes were too extreme. She wasn't debating her points, but sledgehammering them.

To me she was just a platform for Tom's "Will I? Won't I" tap dance about leaving Downton and moving on with his life.

The Crawleys had a fairly poor year with dinner guests in Season 5!!! Sarah Bunting, Simon Bricker, Larry & Tim Grey.

JF is conservative, anyone who is not conservative in the series is portrayed as a stupid and rude, Tom "evolution" was too see how kind and fair was someone like Lord Grantham and how stupid was him by being a socialist, now Tom was in the eunuch who wave his tail to anything that Mary and Robert say. In the beggining something similar with Isobel.

Basically all the points that Bunting made in the dinner were correct, even the russian refugees treated very badly to Atticus for being jew and for some reason they had a revolution in their country it wasnt a free thing. The only thing that she was idiotic in her way was about the memorial, but in fact, the memorial was more about Robert being president of the comission than honoring the men of the village who died.

Also Daisy was portrayed as a idiotic for simply reflect the thought of the vast majority of the servants in that time, we must consider that one or two dresses of Mary, Edith or Cora is easily the year salary of someone like Daisy and those laidies would have at least 10 or 15 per year; but to reduce costs the Crawleys decided to fire Thomas not to have more simply clothes, or in the begining of the season 6 we can see Robert and Mary hunting, ludicrous. A woman like Daisy would wwork from 6 am to 22, maybe with some time to eat and the sunday morning to go to church and nothing more, and yet we must believe that the servants were happy with that kind of life.

The series indeed portraits the Crawleys as a caring aristocratic family when in fact Mary could only know the name of someone like Anna and damm the rest, the same for the rest of the family. Maybe Cora could know the name of more servants because it was her job go and gave them orders in orden how the house would function. But seeing Cora giving her coat to Mrs Hughes or Mary allowing that her child, the heir to earloom share the nursery with the son of her made its imposible.

Daisy Lewis wanted to leave/wouldn't commit to a three year contract, and so she was written out. Before that she was meant to provide a potential love interest for Tom; she was a little spiky but attractive, and a challenge to his loyalty to the Crawleys. To write her out, JF just amped up the spikiness, made her rude, and put in a wedge between her and the Big House.
If she'd stayed, she'd ironically be playing Tom to Tom's Sybil from the first two seasons, challenging his assumed upper class complacency. That was also the thing that many viewers disliked about the new, tame Tom; I wonder if there was any crossover with Bunting-haters--or whether that was because she threatened the most destined match of all television: Tom and Mary.
And had she stayed, she'd probably have mellowed out to her very obvious model in South Riding, Sarah Burton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQlhsoPZMmo

One thing I will always find curious is when, before leaving, she tells Tom 'I loved you, you know'. Ah sorry? You were rude to his family, you berated him for adapting to his new life, you never gave any indication that you had affection for any one or any thing, least of all Tom and he was supposed figure out you loved him? And now he's the baddie?

What an arrogant...

If you dip your foot into a pool of piranhas don't cry when you lose a toe!😞🐟

I was amazed that Sara kept appearing, when she had been so abrasive previously. When the Earl finally kicked her ass out during dinner, it was high time. I'd say Sara needs a sound spanking ;)

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It's a old meme, summarized by the comic history 1066 And All That as Wrong But Wromantic vs. Right But Repulsive.
Bunting is abrasive but her social morality is sound; she faces those children that Molesley faced in the classroom and wants every one of them to rise as far as their talents allow.
Robert is much more likable personally, but the whole modern age puts him at ill-ease, and he wouldn't want those children to get ideas above their station. He instinctively dismisses Tom as a choice for his daughter, and reflexively assumes that anyone with a title would be a perfect fit. He never really takes Gregson seriously, and he's twice the man that any of Mary's suitors were. Bertie the agent is barely better than Edith's everlasting spinsterhood; when he becomes a Marquis Robert is practically doing cartwheels.

Bunting is too tedious to endure during my rewatches, so I always FF through her scenes. So I agree with you that the character is unlikable.

But I have to disagree with your last two sentences. You’re saying Bunting should feel lucky and grateful for the *privilege* of dining with the Crawleys in their obscenely opulent mansion. But the Crawleys aren’t any “better” than people like Bunting, or their own downstairs staff.

Bunting should have been polite. She accepted an invitation and owed her hosts good manners, regardless of what type of lifestyle they had in whatever home they lived in.