spectator.org
Democrats Have No Roadmap for Their Journey Through the Wilderness … and James Carville Knows It
Over the weekend an email came in from a reader. It read, in part…
Why does Carville get so much press coverage? Not only with the MSM, but especially with the honest press (Spectator, Newsmax, Daily Caller, Redstate, etc).
He appears to me to be about as insightful as Karl Rove. I can’t see how their thoughts and comments have added to the discourse for probably the last 20 or so years. Yet, every time they have anything to say, someone covers it.
There are a couple of answers to the reader’s question that inform the general state of things as the second Trump administration ramps up from what’s already a whirlwind of activity. James Carville, as it turns out, is a fairly decent avatar for the Democrat Party as a whole — or at least he used to be.
The most obvious answer is that boomers, the primary viewers of cable news and readers of traditional newspapers, still think of Carville as relevant. Between that and his general quotability (which is another way of saying he’s crass and rude enough to raise eyebrows), he’s perhaps the most marketable of the Democrats’ old-line talking heads. (RELATED: The Kids Are Alright, It’s the Boomers Who Are Bananas)
But what lies underneath is that there are very, very few voices on the Left these days who can reach an audience of people who are straight and white.
And this is a real problem.
There’s a hilariously funny video clip circulating right now of comedian Andrew Shultz as he absolutely burns down the Democrat Party as currently constituted…
“The Democratic party is for 5’8″ and under men and women over 280.”
Comedian Andrew Schulz is out here ROASTING liberal men for being short losers. Comedy is back! pic.twitter.com/ZtpXdUZ1L7
— OutKick (@Outkick) January 27, 2025
They’re no longer cool. Carville, who was so cool at one point that he was cast as the governor of Missouri in the Brad Pitt–Casey Affleck movie about Jesse James, is especially no longer cool. He isn’t even cool among Democrats, as it turns out — and a couple of recent statements of his aren’t going to fix that.
There was this…
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville pleaded with Democrats to let President Donald Trump “punch himself out,” on MSNBC’s “The Beat” with Katie Phang on Friday.
“I mean, look, he just says anything that he wants to say. I mean, how many stories do I have to read that the delta smelt has nothing to do with this, but he’s just going to keep plowing through? OK. And we have to learn as Democrats just let him punch himself out,” said Carville, referencing Trump’s comments accusing Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsome of prioritizing the endangered fish over protecting the state’s residents from wildfires.
Carville expressed that Democrats need to take a page from Muhammad Ali’s book, saying, “Just remember, this is a little bit before your time, but people of my generation remember Muhammad Ali and his rope-a-dope. He just let you just go… the first 6 or 7 rounds, and then you come in and you match up, and then you start launching bombs.”
And then there was this…
Democratic strategist James Carville hopes that former President Joe Biden can help his party by getting out of the way, since “no one wants to hear from” him anymore.
“Well, this is the kind of truth of where we are,” Carville said to his “Politics War Room” podcast co-host Al Hunt on Wednesday. “We all know Biden. Actually, you and I know him personally. And I think it’s fair to say that we’re longtime, at some level, admirers of Joe Biden. What he’s done to himself is, no one wants to hear from this guy anymore, OK?”
He added, “Just go to your condo in Rehoboth and stay there. And that’s not because we’re bad people, or we’re mean people. It was all his doing, all his doing, this entire thing.”
Carville is giving good advice on both counts.
The problem is that it’s also good advice for him.
Because nobody really wants to hear from James Carville anymore. His own party isn’t interested in his advice. And they absolutely aren’t going to listen to his suggestion for a Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope whereby Democrats shut up and allow Trump and his team to govern. That’s less realistic than the idea, to which we’re now being treated, that Joe Biden shouldn’t have been unceremoniously dumped from their ticket.
The really entertaining bit, of course, is that as ramshackle and deranged as Carville currently presents himself — if nothing else, can somebody get him a new Mardi Gras polo shirt to wear? — he might be the only one of his ilk who’s even attempting to figure out how to become relevant in American politics again.
The rest of the Left, banished as they’ve been to the political wilderness by the events of last November, seem to think the answer is “more cowbell.” And more cowbell is not what cures the fever, let me tell you.
This isn’t how it’s going to happen. For example, I give you the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives…
[Hakeem] Jeffries, the first Black American to serve as leader of any national party in Congress, said he expects there to be “an avalanche of righteous litigation” to combat Trump’s anti-DEI policies and some of his other executive orders. He also explained how America and its constitution are founded on the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“The motto of the United States of America is E pluribus unum: Out of many, one. That’s diversity,” said Jeffries.
Jeffries continued, “The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, one of the most important amendments in our country, provides equal protection under the law. That’s equity.” He added, “In this country, we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America … and in that pledge, we promise one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for All … that’s inclusion.”
The minority leader said diversity, equity, and inclusion are “American values,” adding, “It’s about economic opportunity. It’s about merit for everyone, based on what you know, not who you know.”
Jeffries’s gibberish, which could even rate its own column in response (E pluribus unum is about unity, not diversity, you unctuous dunce!), doesn’t turn out to be all that resonant.
Not when it turns out that it’s white chicks who have 76 percent of the chief diversity officer jobs in corporate America. And the people who are supposed to benefit from DEI know it.
Trump nuked DEI and yet this was the result…
Trump approval currently has NO racial demographic signal. Wild!
White – 55%
Black – 57%
Hisp/oth – 58%
— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@Mark_R_Mitchell) January 23, 2025
Blacks and Hispanics actually like Trump better than white people do. But the numbers are close enough that you can say this…
Look at this.
Utterly and completely devastating to the Democrat Party.
In less than a week this is a colorblind country after 50 years of their attempts to make race the center of all human thought.
Trump nuked DEI and across all racial lines they like it.
Incredible. https://t.co/9Mfk07Dmtu
— Scott McKay (@TheHayride) January 24, 2025
Race. Climate change. The Border and immigration. On issue after issue, there is zero change in either the substance, the messaging, or the style.
They can’t do it differently. And the American people can’t stand how they do it.
Carville, as tired and bitter as he is, at least gets it a little. The rest of them? Hopeless.
Which should offer a lot of hope for the American revival we desperately need and might well be experiencing.
READ MORE from Scott McKay:
Five Quick Things: Will Someone Please Take Out the Trash?
Elon Musk and Chris Murphy: The Old Game Keeps On Failing
Thoughts On a Repudiation and Liberation Day: Donald Trump’s Inauguration