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Its beginning to look a lot like August 2009 in reverse.

In that summer of the Tea Party, conservative activists packed the town-hall meetings of Democratic congressmen and peppered them with hostile questions. It was an early sign of the abiding opposition that Obamacare would encounter, and the prelude to Democratic defeats in 2010, 2014, and 2016.

Now, progressive activists are tearing a page from that playbook. The scenes are highly reminiscent of 2009, with Republican officeholders struggling to control unruly forums and leaving their town-hall meetings early or not holding them in the first place.

The partisan temptation in this circumstance is always to dismiss the passion of the other side, which is what Democrats did to their detriment in 2009 and Republicans are doing now.

Its not often that White House press secretary Sean Spicer sounds like his Obama predecessor Robert Gibbs, but on this, he might as well be reading leftover talking points. Gibbs dismissed the Tea Partys town-hall agitation eight years ago as manufactured anger reflecting the Astro-turf nature of grassroots lobbying. Spicer says of the town-hall protests, Its not these organic uprisings that weve seen through the last several decades the Tea Party was a very organic movement this has become a very paid, Astro-turf-type movement.

What was true in 2009 is true today: In the normal course of things, its not easy even for a well-funded and -organized group to get people to spend an evening at a school auditorium hooting at their congressman. If these demonstrations are happening in districts around the country, attention must be paid.

This is not to condone the more rancid elements of the Lefts ferment (blocking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from entering a Washington, D.C., school was petty thuggishness), nor is it to consider what is happening as nearly as significant as the Tea Party yet.

To become the Lefts equivalent of the Tea Party, the protestors will have to persist despite the inevitable legislative defeats on the horizon; organize at the grass-roots level; play in Democratic primaries; make their own partys establishment miserable; and pick off a significant Republican seat in what seems like impossible territory, the way Scott Brown did in the Massachusetts special election after the death of Ted Kennedy.

None of this is certain, or necessarily likely. But Democrats deluded themselves in 2009 by disregarding the early signs of fierce resistance to their agenda, and paid the price over and over again for their heedless high-handedness. Republicans shouldnt make the same mistake.

There is nothing to suggest that the Lefts town-hall protesters represent anything like a majority of the country. Even an impassioned plurality can make a big impact, though. And if we have learned anything from the Obamacare debate, it is that disturbing the status quo in American health care carries significant downside political risk. Democrats were in that position in 2009; Republicans are now.

The GOP cant and shouldnt back off their promise to repeal Obamacare. But the party should redouble its commitment to do as much as it can to replace the law simultaneously with its repeal. At the prodding of President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans have been moving in this direction. It behooves the party as a policy and political matter to show that its legislation wont lead to millions of people losing their insurance and wont return to the pre-Obamacare status quo for people with pre-existing conditions.

With a consensus on replacement, Republicans would be much better equipped to push back at contentious town halls, and to potentially defuse at least some of the fear and anger engendered by their health-care agenda. The alternative is to look the other way, avoid town halls, and hope that after the repeal passes everything calms down. This was essentially the Democratic tack in 2009, and how did that work out?

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: [emailprotected]. 2017 King Features Syndicate

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Heed the Protests - National Review