President Trump’s address to Congress last week — filled with the glut of fictions his followers adore — was the sort of loopy performance we’ve come to expect.

He claimed, for example, that the government spent $8 million on making mice transgender, when in reality the money was spent on “transgenic mice” — a breed of mice that’s genetically altered to better replicate human disease response.

Just another day in Trump’s carnival of unreality to amuse his followers.

The day’s bigger story to us was the Democratic response to Trump — or lack thereof.

We had hoped the national Democrats and their costly consultants would have cobbled together a catchy message for the American people.

Heck, even a simple message as artless as “We’ve Got Your Back” would be better than the disorganized gaggle of preening solo artists on display Tuesday night.

There was U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who interrupted the speech by yelling that Trump did not win a mandate. Green was escorted from the chamber, by himself, and not a single fellow Democrat walked by his side. Then there were Democrats such as Pramilla Jayapal, D-Washington, holding up silly little ping pong paddles with messages like “MUSK STEALS” or “FALSE.”

Still other Democrats wore pink outfits to protest cuts affecting children and families. Real badges of courage.

Then, for the official Democratic response to Trump’s speech, along came U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan, whose rebuttal speech felt like a warmed over mishmash of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, with all the talk of “working hard and playing by the rules” and “America is exceptional” and “we all want smaller government, but the way Trump is doing it is reckless.”

Good politics requires clear contrasts to make voters understand the choice between the two parties. The muddled message from today’s Democratic Party is a huge missed opportunity.

The Democrats used to be good at putting gutsy and ambitious things at the top of the nation’s agenda. Such as:

• Beating the Great Depression with massive public works programs that brought irrigation to the Pacific Northwest and electricity to the Tennessee Valley.

• Mobilizing to win World War II and save the world from Nazi domination.

• Enacting Social Security in 1935.

• Eliminating racism in the military under Truman.

• Leading the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

• Creating Medicare in 1965, today a bulwark of progressive social policy that provides affordable health care to 66 million Americans.

Ronald Reagan said in a famous 1964 speech that his opposition to Social Security and Medicare is why he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

And yet on Tuesday night there was Sen. Slotkin — the supposed Democratic answer to Trump’s cruel follies — warmly invoking the memory of Ronald Reagan.

The Democrats have the raw material for a strong story to sell to the American people. But recycled platitudes from Clinton and Reagan won’t cut it.

In today’s political environment, awash with misinformation powered by social media, the Democrats don’t stand a chance of reclaiming the upper hand without a powerful, positive and unified message of leadership for the country.

How this message gets delivered is vital. Too often, Democrats avoid confrontation with Republicans, hoping to appear to be cooperative compromisers. But compromise is not a political platform, it is a negotiation tool.

A prominent Democratic strategist, James Carville, suggested recently that Democrats should make a strategic retreat (“play dead”), wait for the Trump administration to collapse from incompetence and then swing back into action to pick up the pieces.

He might be right or wrong. But for certain, his strategy provides convenient cover for national Democrats to continue on their hapless path. Besides, betting on Trump to fail hasn’t worked to date and at its core is a pessimistic bet against the country.

Democrats would be at their best not by waiting for failure but by unifying around a positive message of growth, optimism, tolerance and fairness for the American people. That’s what a true political party does.

The Republican (Springfield, Mass.)