Longtime Democrat strategist James Carville has suggested something that Democrats tried long ago. It worked to their detriment and to the country’s long-term benefit, so we have good reason to cheer for it.
Alas, in making this particular suggestion, the 80-year-old Carville also exposed himself as a relic of a bygone era.
Thursday on the podcast “Politics War Room with James Carville & Al Hunt,” Carville blasted the wokeness-obsessed elements of the Democratic Party and even went as far as to advise a “schism” that would result in the formation of a woke third party, thereby demonstrating that Carville, for all his decades of experience, still clings to the illusion that the vast majority of Democrats remain committed centrist-liberals in the mold of his former boss, President Bill Clinton.
In that sense, Carville, who served as chief strategist during Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign, remains stuck in the 1990s.
“We had a bad election cycle. The party has a bad image,” Carville said of the 2024 elections and their aftermath.
“A lot it is we lost. A lot of Democrats don’t like it,” he added by way of explaining the party’s historically low approval ratings. “But a lot of other people think that we are an urban, old party with, kind of, esoteric ideas.”
Carville then suggested that Democrats needed to focus on President Donald Trump.
Have they not already done that? Have Democrats not spent ten years frothing at the mouth amid their collective and quite pathological obsession with Trump?
In any event, Carville seemed to think that Democrats have spent too much time fighting one another. He cited, for instance, 25-year-old David Hogg, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. According to Carville, Hogg has spent too much time raising money in order to bring primary challengers against other Democrats.
Would a split among Democrats kill their party?
Moreover, that line of reasoning appeared to trigger a series of “these kids today”-type reflections from the octogenarian.
“I don’t think that part of the Democratic coalition — I don’t think they’re redeemable, [and] I don’t think they want to be redeemed,” Carville said, referring to a recent meeting of the Democrat-supported organization American Voices “where they had bowls of buttons where you could put your pronoun and wear your button.”
At several points during those “pronoun” comments, Carville looked disgusted, as if he had bit into a lemon.
“I don’t think these people get it,” he added. “I don’t think they ever will get it. And I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it now, I think we ought to think about just having a schism.”
In other words, Carville wants the pronoun-loving wing of the Democratic Party to go away.
“I think these people should get their own party,” he continued, adding a touch of comedy. “Don’t call it anything Democratic. Call it the Socialist Urban Justice Community Unity Party of the whatever. And then after the election maybe we can have negotiations.”
Readers may view Carville’s full comments in the YouTube video below. Relevant segments began at the 10:25, 15:20, and 17:20 marks.
Of course, Democrats tried this “schism” a long time ago. Like most everything that Democrats do for their own benefit, that strategy hurt the party and benefited the United States.
In 1860, Democrats split largely into Northern and Southern wings, at odds over how best to protect slavery. Northern Democrats preferred the cowardly approach, which involved defending slavery while pretending that they cared about democracy in the process. Southern Democrats, on the other hand, chose the reprehensible-yet-oddly-honorable route of admitting that they would defend slavery to the death rather than subject it to a vote.
That split ensured Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election with only 39.8 percent of the popular vote. Democrats had kept Lincoln’s name off of Southern state ballots.
Thus, when Democrats fight or act in their own interests, America wins in the long run. A cataclysmic Civil War ensued, but slavery died.
Should Democrats take a similar approach in 2025, perhaps the evils they defend would also die. Wokeness would go the way of the dinosaurs. And the warmongering establishment, core of the Democrat-voting deep state, would no longer have the power to fleece ordinary Americans while terrorizing the world.
Unfortunately — speaking of dinosaurs — Carville does not understand his own party. He seems to think that the pronoun-mongers constitute the fringe when in fact they command the center.
After all, nearly all elected Democrats appear either beholden to the woke true believers or qualify as true believers themselves. Nothing else could explain why 45 Democrat senators voted to kill legislation designed to keep males out of female sports.
In short, Carville’s suggestion, should it materialize, would destroy the Democratic Party and thereby help Americans. But it will not materialize, for Carville still clings to comfortable illusions about what that party actually represents.
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