Democrats lost the fall election by allowing themselves to be tagged as the party of inflation and illegal immigration.

They seem bound to lose the next one by identifying as the defenders of government waste, fraud and inefficiency. Once again, Democrats are listening only to the voice of the hard left telling them the American people don’t really want what they say they want.

They believe they’ve found the perfect boogeyman in Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and innovator who has offered his skills to help President Donald Trump shrink the size of government.

Strategically, Democrats are convinced if they can make Musk into Simon LeGree, they can turn public opinion against Trump.

Becoming the guardians of the bureaucracy is a losing strategy. Americans know the federal government is squandering too many of their dollars on low-return programs, allowing too much of their money to be siphoned off by grifters and supporting too many leeches who are bleeding taxpayers dry.

Democrats know it, too, because their own leaders, notably former Presidents Obama and Clinton, have told them so, and made promises they never kept to streamline the government.

Now that someone is finally acting, Democrats are pretending the bureaucracy is as industrious and virtuous as Santa’s Workshop and any dollar that gets cut means another kiddie won’t have a Christmas.

Look at the general conversation around cost cutting. The stories for the most part focus on the damage that will be done by the spending reductions and barely mention the appalling examples of fraud and waste.

Musk has a brilliant counter offensive, posting non-stop on his social media platforms the most egregious examples of Washington’s spending abuse.

Some have been identified for years — such as the $1,300 each the Air Force spends for reheatable coffee cups on aircraft — and last year the $20 billion former President Joe Biden stashed in a so-called “Green Bank” to fund climate change advocacy groups. Some are newly uncovered.

Democrats decrying the cuts to such expenditures can expect to have to defend them on the campaign trail.

That warning comes from one of their own, Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who was the only Democrat with the courage to challenge the party establishment in the 2024 election.

“Democrats are only focused on one thing right now, Mr. Musk,” Phillips told the Hill. “The fact of the matter, he’s quite popular. He has the largest platform in human history, which is, of course, Twitter/X. And I think we’re missing the boat as Democrats.

“… (S)ometimes it’s better to join them and actually play a role in how the strategy works, rather than — so pathetically, frankly — try to combat something that clearly is a steamroller.”

He’s exactly right. Beat Republicans by joining them. Instead of going to court to block every attempt to eliminate a government program, offer to help put in place legitimate spending reforms.

Helping to identify and protect the spending that is producing desirable results is smarter than fighting to save the bad along with the good. Democrats should become the loudest voices in calling out the waste of their constituents’ hard-earned dollars.

Most of those in Congress who are squawking about Musk have never offered a single measure themselves to cut spending.

This is a moment of opportunity for them to get on the right side of what could be a historic movement to head-off a coming economic catastrophe.

Nolan Finley writes for the Detroit News.