Democrats are looking at a dozen years in the wilderness

Did you hear the one about the “common sense, pragmatic” Democrats who stood up to the far-left cabal within their own party?

No? Neither did I.

And neither, apparently, has Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), who posted on X right after the election: “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’ There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world. The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

Torres, a rising star in the Democratic Party, is correct in his assessment. But his needed criticism of the far-left wing of his party, and the mistakes the leadership of his party continually make by giving that “woke” splinter-group such an outsized and continual voice, misses a much larger problem. A growing number of voters from within the communities the Democrats have counted on for victory are now buying into the “Trump Doctrine.”

It can certainly be argued that many of those voters from those traditional Democratic blocs — minorities, the blue-collar working class, rank-and-file union members, young moms, Gen Z and the poor and disenfranchised — do feel like they have been taken for granted, ignored, abandoned and exploited by the leaders of the Democratic Party, as well as the shadowy powerbrokers behind the scenes.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me repeatedly over the years while my standard of life craters and ... I’m jumping on the Trump train to see where it takes me and my family.

It can also be argued that the non-“common sense, pragmatic” part of the Democratic leadership and the “far-left” that Torres took to task are now petrified of one thing: Trump succeeding across the board.

Should he do so — and I believe he is about to achieve one major success after another — the percentage of voters from the communities the Democrats count on for success is going to shrink dramatically as it transfers to the Trump side of the ledger. The “Trump side” being a very important distinction.

For years — and even decades — these voters in traditionally Democratic communities have felt just as ignored, exploited and abandoned by Republican candidates and “leaders” who were seemingly spot-welded to the Chamber of Commerce, corporate America and special interests and never heard these voters’ cries for help.

A large percentage of these voters from those traditional Democratic voting blocs believe Trump — not so much the entrenched-elite Republican Party — does hear their voices and will address their needs. Hence the dramatic shift on Election Day.

“So, what,” some from the failed far-left Democratic leadership might say. “Trump can only serve for four years and then he is out of office permanently.”

True. But who did he pick as his vice president?

The answer, of course, is Vice President-elect JD Vance. While the far-left of the Democratic Party obviously knows that, do they truly understand what it means? I am willing to bet that Torres has given it a great deal of thought.

Point number one with regard to Vance is that Trump picked him because he wanted someone who would carry on his agenda beyond the next four years. In Vance, Trump got a vice president who not only deeply believes in that Trump agenda, but often doubles down on it — an agenda, remember, that already appeals to a great many voters from those Democratic voting blocs.

Next, we come to Vance’s age: 40. He will be the third-youngest vice president in American history and the second-youngest in more than 150 years. Voters from every walk of life have taken note of that.

More than his age is Vance’s remarkable, heartbreaking and incredibly identifiable life story, told in his mega-bestselling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” The story was even turned into a movie by acclaimed filmmaker Ron Howard.

After Trump picked Vance, "Hillbilly Elegy" became a national bestseller all over again with hundreds of thousands of new sales. Why? Because Vance’s story is in so many ways the American story. He came from nothing, was given nothing and still managed to find his slice of the “American Dream.” It is a story which resonates with millions.

Next, we come to Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance. Not only is she a highly accomplished Yale Law School-educated lawyer — having clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts before moving on to an incredibly successful law career — but she, like her husband, is instantly relatable to millions of Americans, who see so much of themselves in the incoming “Second Lady.”

As a daughter of immigrants from India and now a mother of three, Usha Vance is the face and story so many Americans see — or hope to see — when they look in the mirror. Of his highly accomplished wife, Vance once said, “She instinctively understood the questions I didn’t even know to ask and she always encouraged me to seek opportunities that I didn’t know existed.”

I highlight the background of the Vances to say to those Democrats who feel certain they can reclaim the White House in 2028, that you — to the point made by Torres — are failing miserably at reading the room.

You tuned out your own voters and constituencies in 2024 to the betterment of Trump and our nation, and I suspect will do so again come 2028 and 2032. Trump-Vance is built to last.

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.