Which Dem apparatchik thought that sending Rep. Ilhan Omar to speak to miners would be a good idea?

Especially when the miners have been deserted by a party that decided to put San Francisco’s green billionaires ahead of working people?

Many jubilant residents of Ely and nearby towns are now hanging their hopes on a plan to build a massive mining facility …. Environmental groups mounted a well-funded push against the project. Democratic presidential contenders began objecting, too: Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren pledged to stop the project. Joe Biden has yet to take a position.

San Fran runs the party.

And that’s forced people in Ely and Minnesota’s Iron Range region to think again about who are its protectors and defenders.

A place that once gave Democratic native sons Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale 4:1 voting margins and considers the late Sen. Paul Wellstone a local hero has begun to embrace a president who bears little resemblance to them, except that he reversed the “injustice” of an Obama-era order that would have brought the nickel-copper project to a 20-year standstill. On top of that were the 25 percent tariffs Trump imposed on most foreign steel, which provided an initial boost to the 5,000 miners still employed in the region’s numerous iron-ore mines that have served as the backbone to the region’s economy.

All of that put Ely in the middle of a political transformation that makes Minnesota the president’s top target among states he lost in 2016, and potentially a pivot point in the 2020 presidential race. Trump lost the state by a margin of 45,000 votes in 2016, a remarkable feat considering how entrenched Democrats have been in the state.

“The Iron Range is back in business,” Trump declared in a speech in Minneapolis last October.

Hey, you know what will fix this? Sending Rep. Ilhan Omar to talk to them and tell them that they’re the past.

Every time Chris Johnson gathers his United Steelworkers Local 2705 at the hall in Chisholm, Minn., the union of roughly 600 mine workers that pull iron ore out of the Hibbing Taconite mine have one question: Why isn’t their leadership going all in on Trump?

Johnson estimates that about 75 percent of his membership supports Trump.

Johnson recounted a meeting last year in Washington with Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minneapolis. He said the lawmaker told him the way of life in the Iron Range is going to change.

“We’re a vital part of all products made in this country and abroad and for her to just sit there and say, ‘look you guys are going to have to learn a different industry’ doesn’t go over well,” he said.

Learn to code is always a great message.

Rep. Omar is the future of the Democrats. Iron Range is the future of the Republicans.