Before we liberals get carried away with jubilation over having seen Mr. Trump get his pie in the face over Obamacare, let’s remember that the people most responsible for his embarrassment are the very people with whom we most deeply disagree on almost every political issue of the day — the Freedom Caucus. That group of three dozen or so House members consists of the remaining dregs of the Tea Party, now marooned at the bottom of the cup by the dog and pony act now playing the White House. The caucus proclaims fidelity to most of the worst goals of the post-Reagan Republican world : from trickle-down economics and Grover Norquist’s “no more taxes” to the use of fetuses and refugees as partisan weapons. It is highly unlikely that we can form any lasting alliance with such people, and therefore equally unlikely that we can count on any such lucky rescue when the next obnoxious Trump proposal comes along.

Will that be immigration? Ecological suicide? Control of the Internet? Exclusion of people whose religions or skin color or birthplace will serve as reason enough to throw them out of our country — or maybe throw them in the slammer with Crooked Hillary? Trump’s clown advisors will have to decide.

Whatever it is, we can anticipate that even the catch-as-catch-can improv crew currently serving as advisors to the Oval Office are unlikely to fall twice in a row into the same trap. They may be nefarious or not, according to your personal view, but they didn’t get where they are by being totally stupid. They have shown imagination, at least in the matter of persuading a sufficient number of not very logical citizens to behave in self-destructive ways under the spell of meaningless slogans and chants and bombast and a bouffant hairdo. This, as much as we may bemoan it, has demonstrated their political skill, and we can expect that skill to be deployed vigorously down the line since as troglodytes and Luddites Trumpians can’t rely on substance. So we will have to be prepared to mount the next defense based on our own resources, and not rely on the continued disorganization or miscalculation of our opponents.

How do we do that?

My suggestion is that, like a Breitbart editor with a bit of catnip alt-right misinformation, we wave it before the troops to the bitter end — never stop alluding to it, never stop digging it up on every suitable or unsuitable occasion, and never, never let allow even the most trivial bit of fake news to be relegated to yesterday’s headlines, where it can be buried under a flood of new provocative allegations. The telephone-tapping accusation must be pursued : where is the evidence? The Russian connection must be investigated : where are the emails? The tax returns must be disclosed : how long can the IRS be permitted to continue its audit? Rejection of climate science must be challenged in every smallest detail : the most revered names must sign the declarations. The roles of the arts in society must be examined with all the intensity that the F-35 contract received. The fight over eliminating mountain-topping and valley-choking in West Virginia must stay front and center until the citizens of Wyoming understand that it does indeed matter to them and to all the rest of us, from Mississippi to Maine.

This will come across to many, whose worst fears went unrealized last week when Obamacare survived by the skin of its teeth, as unnecessary preoccupation with vengeance after the horse has been found and coaxed back into the barn. It is not. It is the everyday price of decent government. Persistence is far more effective than brains in a town where election to the House guarantees a 97 percent shot at being re-elected forever. (Even Senators enjoy 87 percent odds of a return to office.) By limiting our off-and-on personal involvement to those occasions when the Times breaks out the 30-point caps on the front page, we insure that the inside stories about “minor” transgressions can be lived down by the crooks. The broken windows approach to street crime may be an overreach; but when applied to politics it is the only approach that has any hope of successfully penetrating the closed-door sessions of blatantly competitive and self-serving politicians, who seek only cover for their personal ambitions and their invitations to the A-list events so prized by their wives (or their husbands, as the case may be) and their post-government-career connections to the plutocrats with the moneybags and the sinecure appointments to corporate boards. Fighting the status quo is the price of good citizenship.

Will we take that lesson to heart? I wouldn’t bet a whole lot of money on it. I suspect we are far more likely to subscribe to the comforting illusion that “We are all Kardashians if only the TV producers would spot us.” That lucky stool at the soda fountain in the Hollywood of 80 years ago may be myth, but it’s reincarnation is only as far away as the next push of the remote button.