Here's a suggestion for frustrated New Jersey Democrats who can't seem to figure out how to win Donald Trump's approval for one of the nation's most vital infrastructure projects.

Why not try flattery, of the ostentatious Trumpian variety? If you can't win Trump over with facts and reason, why not take a run at his ego?

Here's one way to do it: Recommend that the planned replacement of the creaky rail bridge over the Hackensack River be renamed the Donald J. Trump Portal Bridge.

That might sound like a ridiculous proposition, especially in a blue, Never-Trump state like New Jersey. Why in the world would New Jersey officials turn another valuable piece of Garden State real estate into another vanity Trump project?

After all, he stiffed casino workers and contractors after his once-glittering Atlantic City casino empire went belly up. His efforts to revive the troubled landfill-to-links project in the Meadowlands flopped in less than a year.

Yet there is some logic to the idea.

Smothering Trump with flattery often works. He loves to see his name in block letters affixed to gaudy hotels and posh golf resorts. He likes to collect trophies with his name on them. It feeds his unending need for validation.

And what better way to flatter the volatile Twitter king with a garish "THE DONALD J. TRUMP PORTAL BRIDGE" sign stretched in an arch across the new span, blinking in large yellow bulbs for all Amtrak passengers and inbound Newark Airport plane passengers to see. He would view it as a marketing coup.

Cory Booker

It's not an entirely new idea.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., raised the possibility last March.

Booker — who has been Senator in Absentia amid the lead water crisis in Newark, the city he calls home and served as mayor — suggested putting Trump's name on the entire "Gateway" project, which includes the bridge, building a new Hudson River rail tunnel and restoring the existing 110-year-old tube.

"We'll name this the Trump tunnel if necessary. I don't care,'' Booker said at the time. "This is not about ego. This is about the people of this region."

It's worth considering, because the Democrats' conventional route of lobbying is proving to be a waste of time.

Phil Murphy

Wednesday's utterly predictable, dead-of-summer press conference with Gov. Phil Murphy presiding over the state's Democratic congressional delegation and state lawmakers is not going to move Trump to authorize federal funding for the $1.8 billion project.

It's hard to believe that Trump will somehow be embarrassed to discover that thousands of commuters wait, sometimes for hours, for a worker with a sledgehammer to bang the century-old swing bridge back into operation.

It's a low-tech American embarrassment, but New Jersey is a low priority in Trump's 2020 reelection strategy. Authorizing a $20 billion infrastructure project in the liberal Northeast might not go over well with his right-wing, anti-government base in the South and Midwest. And, the political reasoning goes, why would he expend any political capital in a state where nearly two-thirds of voters disapprove of his conduct?

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Yet the Democrats are not getting anywhere with their appeals to reason. They need to toss out the old playbook and consider playing by Trump's rules.

And why not? None of the traditional rules of political advocacy apply in Trump world. This is an administration where fiction is peddled as fact. It's where white nationalists, the much-loathed fringe of our nation's politics, are welcomed.

What was once considered improper and tacky — like inviting world leaders to his Florida resort in Miami for next year's G-7 summit — is now considered presidential in Trump world. Naming a bridge after Trump is also tacky, but so what? It's better to have a tacky bridge than none at all.

"I will go and tell him that he's the smartest, most important man in my life,'' said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, who paused and then added, "other than my husband."

Donald Trump Portal Bridge

Murphy, though, isn't interested in suddenly sucking up to Trump with a bridge-naming project.

"There is a limit as to what we will do on this,'' Murphy said. "We are on the right side of history ... [I'm] frustrated, but I continue to be optimistic that we will get there."

I'm not sure everybody is convinced of that.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Malinowski, D-Rocky Hill, said he also has heard of the Trump naming idea being floated but noted that some didn't think Trump would go for the naming of a new tunnel. Most passengers probably wouldn't see it.

However, they might see it on the Trump bridge.

And while a lot of commuters might snicker and grouse at Trump as they pass by his name, it may be preferable to waiting for hours while the next worker pounds the bridge back into operation with a sledgehammer.