How do you beat a liar? You don’t play his game

President Trump lies every day. If you think otherwise, you’re wrong.

Within the past few days, he lied to Naval Academy graduates about everything from the military budget to pay raises, denied that a briefing by his own staff member ever occurred, blamed Democrats for cruel immigration policies of his own administration’s doing and claimed that his campaign was never warned about Russian infiltration.

{mosads}He’s not telling “demonstrable falsehoods,” “factual errors” or “misrepresentations of the truth” as those uncomfortable with using the most accurate word — lie — claim in order to insulate themselves from the next round of #FakeNews wars.

And though liars generally are pretty unpopular in life, this liar is a special breed. What’s more, he’s now a liar with good economic numbers, a potential North Korea summit, dozens fewer regulations and many newly confirmed conservative judges, as well as an embassy in Jerusalem to boot.

This version is even harder to beat, which is why it’s so important for Democrats to stop twisting themselves in knots trying to decide what the right amount of Russia collusion talk is to win in November. The answer is none, if at all possible.

I say this as someone who believes wholeheartedly in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and is no conspiracy theorist, but remains pretty damn sure there was collusion. I say this as someone who believes in the men and women of the intelligence community who have shown that the Russians interfered in our election and wanted Trump to win. I also say this as someone who believes that the Russians will try to do it again and that we are woefully unprepared to combat them in just a few short months.

Believing in all these things is no campaign strategy, sadly. We can’t win in November talking that way — and we especially can’t up against a liar such as Donald Trump.

A poll released last week found that close to 60 percent of Americans were not aware that the Mueller probe had uncovered any crimes. To date, there have been 19 indictments issued, including Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and a few aides. That certainly doesn’t sound like not uncovering any crimes, but that’s where we are even though 97 percent of Americans report that they’ve heard about the Mueller probe.

It looked like Democrats were heeding this finding at least to some degree, focusing on the “culture of corruption” in Trump’s administration instead of Russia collusion. As a liberal contributor on Fox News, I delighted in the opportunity to call out Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price for a minute or two and remind our audience that Democrats had run on this platform in 2006, as well, to great success.

What happened next? An energized Republican National Committee spokesperson snapped back that Democrats have nothing to run on so they’re stealing Trump’s “drain the swamp” tagline. Not only that, President Reagan talked about it first. Oh, and there are plenty of Democrats who look pretty swampy when push comes to shove.

There goes that angle.

In an awesome article for Vanity Fair, Peter Hamby discusses the pitfalls of fighting Trump for attention. “So when Trump claims he is the victim of the DEEP STATE conspiracy designed to undercut his presidency — #SPYGATE — our political conversation suddenly becomes premised on a lie, but his lies are nevertheless the terms of the debate,” he writes. That’s exactly it: Trump is setting the terms.

It follows that we all have the conversation Trump wants us to have because we allow ourselves to fall off script. He knows he’s winning the Russia argument and we just can’t cater to his lies as we continue to be players in the Trump show.

Democrats must be dull. We must return to the safety of tried-and-true winning tactics such as discussing the economy and health care. I don’t think that the Democrat slogan for 2018 — A Better Deal for Our Democracy — is as catchy as Make America Great Again, but it’s at least honest and reflective of our policies.

For example, Democrats should be seizing the opportunity to talk about a federal jobs guarantee. Everyone who wants a job has one today. That’s a good thing! But are they decent jobs? “That’s the big issue. People have precarious work, low-paid work, no benefits or few benefits,” says William Darity, an economics professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Republicans can talk a big game about low unemployment and their tax cut that is consistently losing support, but they aren’t having a nuanced discussion of job quality.

On health care, Democrats have the opportunity to pitch ObamaCare fixes that could even garner some GOP support. I know that single-payer is all the rage, but we’ve got 10 Democratic senators in states that are very fond of Trump who will only hear “socialism” when single-payer is discussed.

Talk about subsidies for older Americans to ease the cost burden and for younger Americans to get them in the system. Revisit antitrust reform and tort reform while they’re at it.Imagine a world where Democrats don’t have to talk about Michael Avenatti. It’s one where voters who were turned off in 2016 come back to us and where the most spirited members of the #Resistance are still pumped up and ready to go.

We won’t lose support for dropping the Russia angle, and only stand to gain at the polls for pushing aside the temptation to tangle with Trump the way he likes it — in a bed of lies.

Jessica Tarlov is head of research at Bustle Digital Group and a Fox News contributor. She earned her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in political science.