Progressives often seem like the Canadians of American politics, at least as Canadians were perceived before they were declared to be national security risks. Unfailingly polite and courteous, ready to break out into folk song at the first pluck of an acoustic guitar string, reticent to force their views on others no matter how strongly felt, it is usually the progressive talking head who allows the conservative talking head to shout them down when the discussion on the talk show waxes heated.

Of late, the times appear to be a-changing.

At the Battle of the Red Hen Restaurant, the staff held an impromptu caucus, the upshot of which was Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave, which she did with grace, and then twittered about. In doing so on her government account, some federal regulations were broken, but that has never been of much concern over last 18 months or so.

Earlier in that same week, Homeland Security head Kirstjen Neilsen, hot off a stirring defense of the administration’s immigration policies, was heckled while trying to eat at an upscale Mexican restaurant. Stephen Miller, the shadowy presidential advisor who many suspect is the author of the policies championed by Ms. Neilsen, was similarly entertained at yet another Mexican restaurant in the D.C. area.

As normally supine progressives across the country began to puff out their chests and shake their tail feathers over their new-found pugnaciousness, enter Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).

Congresswoman Waters, herself a not infrequent target of Trumpian ire, cheered on the direct action. “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. … If you see anyone from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, (or) at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

She would later double down: “I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it is wrong what they’re doing … but they tend not to want to confront this president. …The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide to tell the president ‘No, this is wrong’…”

It is SOOO tempting to surrender to the dark side. To give back as good as received. After all, pushed hard enough, progressives can be as snarky and mean-spirited as any Trump loyalist. There is an advantage in having fact facts rather than fake facts in your corner. And, again, if pushed, progressives can use really big words to make their case.

But it would be a mistake.

Trump and his minions cannot be beaten by the opposition becoming like Trump and his minions.

The republic deserves more than opposing troops of monkeys slinging caca at each other.

The issues are certainly there.

The massive tax cut that, for most of Americans, wasn’t.

The 2019 budget proposal floated quietly last week by Paul Ryan that calls for $537 billion in cuts to Medicare, $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, and $4 billion to cuts in Social Security over the next decade to help pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy.

The growing isolation of the United States in the world community as the result of the intemperate actions of a self-proclaimed “deal maker” who, to date, has proved unable to make deals having any substance.

A president so mercurial that whatever policies are announced today cannot be relied upon to be the policies in effect tomorrow.

A president whose relationship with truth is tenuous at best.

A president who has sanctioned the separation of children from their parents without any provision for their eventual reunification.

A president who considers the protections afforded by our foundational documents to be road blocks rather than road signs indicating the paths that should be taken.

It is so tempting to get down and wrestle in the mud, but so destructive of the possibility of ever rising above it.