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Do two wrongs make a right?

Thats the dilemma facing Democrats, liberals, resisters and others as they confront the prospects of a Trump administration that appears to be gearing up to do just what Trump the candidate promised.

Do they adopt Tea Party-style obstructionist tactics that gridlocked the wheels of federal government with the goal of making Obama a delegitimized, one-term president? Do they raise and deploy the mega-millions in unaccountable dark money unleashed by Citizens United to fund candidates and initiatives at the state level?

Or do they work within legislative and electoral channels and build transparent coalitions thatcheckmate and ultimately reverse the results of the 2016 election?

The last time there was a sea change in White House leadership was 2008, and back then it was big business, the health care establishment and social conservatives who refused to play ball with the new administration. Conservative foundations bankrolled the more confrontational tea party movement and its front group, Americans for Prosperity, and the 2009 congressional town halls on Obamacare saw Democrats shouted down. By 2011, radical Republicans were shutting down Grand Canyon National Park over a debt ceiling that was about re-election politics, not fiscal responsibility.

Fast forward eight years, and Republican members of Congress are girding for the same reception this coming week during the first recess of the new term. Several already have had a taste of confrontational tactics that leave little room for discussion the volume is too loud, the rhetoric too polarized.

Locally, Trump resisters have been organizing rallies, writing postcards and making phone calls. And since Trump supporters like state Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff, have blocked their calls and emails, they are itching to get him to hold a local town hall that would likely follow the same shout-down script. After all, it seemed to work against Republican Paul Gosar, who received such a hostile reception in Flagstaff as a first-term congressman that he switched districts for the next election.

In truth, however, Gosar was redistricted out of a seat that Republicans felt he didnt have a chance to win. And the Democrats who were on the receiving end of such tactics in 2009 decried them as the work of verbal bullies with no respect for the democratic process. The hostilities only escalated from there until a congresswoman meeting her constituents at a Safeway in Tucson was met with lethal force and all sides called a timeout.

So where is resistance that observes the democratic spirit andprocess supposed to lead? If the Trump resisters of today were the same ones bemoaning the tactical monkey-wrenching and obstructionism of the anti-Obama tea partyers, how can they call for Democrats in the Senate to filibuster every nomination or for EPA employees to slow-walk every climate change-denying order? If the answer is that when the other side doesnt play by the rules, neither should we, then we return to our original question: How do two wrongs produce a better outcome?

On Friday, this newspaper printed a guest column by a retired congressman who first came to Washington in 1975 with advice about how to influence your lawmaker face to face on Capitol Hill or the district office. The tips do your homework, use group leverage to get on the appointment calendar, be brief, follow up with a thank-you note seemed almost quaint, given the hyper-polarization and the no-holds-barred social media campaigns today. But if a congressman is not going to hold town halls, then maybe a semi-private meeting is the next best thing.

Our sense, given this countrys history, is that the political power pendulum only swings so far to the left or right before it heads in the opposite direction. Parties with supermajorities in power almost always overreach, and voters let them know it often after just two years at mid-term elections. The key, however, is that the traditional checks and balances of an independent judiciary, broad-based voting rights and a vigorous press protected by the First Amendment keep the pendulum from flying off the clock.

Well concede that after a month in office, the Trump administration has shown little respect for those institutions. But so far, the pushback has been firm and Trump finds himself with one of the lowest approval ratings of any president so soon after taking the oath. The tea party types might have taken over the reins of government, but they have yet to show they know how to govern. Resisters who emulate their tactics at this stage of the game do their cause and their country no favors.

Serving on the Daily Suns Editorial Advisory Boardthis week were Publisher Don Rowley, Editor Randy Wilson and citizen membersCharlotte Welch, Laura Bustamante-Myers, Jeff Ross,Ken Lamm and Alison Walker.

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Our View: Tea party tactics won't support real change - Arizona Daily Sun