"Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided. These are the words I hear my fellow Democrats using to describe our party as of late. The truth is they’re not wrong: The Democratic Party is in shambles."
Those are the opening words in an op-ed written by veteran Democrat strategist James Carville, and published by The New York Times on Monday.
The crotchety, Gollum-like, "Ragin' Cajun" went on to rip his party a new one, and as much as Carville loathes the ground on which Donald Trump and the Republicans walk, the bitter old dude was largely on-point about the state in which the Democrat Party now finds itself — with every one of its problems intentionally self-inflicted.
The most bizarre — and funniest — part of the current state of affairs of the Democrat Party is its abject refusal to stop hitting itself in the head with a hammer — the same TDS-riddled hammer with which it's been hitting itself since Donald and Melania Trump rode down the Trump Tower "golden escalator" in June 2015 to announce that Mr. Trump would seek the Republican Party's 2016 presidential nomination.
While Democrat muckety-mucks and their lapdogs in the quasi-official Democrat media laughed like hyenas at the notion that Trump had the audacity to believe he could win the 2016 election, the laughter quickly turned to what we now refer to as Trump Derangement Syndrome after Donald bested Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' presumptive successor to the throne of Barack Obama.
The rest, as they say (whoever "they" are), is history — and what a miserable 10-year history it's been for the Democrats.
And now, after four troubled years under a cognitively-vacant figurehead president and a vice president best known for delivering word-salad speeches and inexplicably bizarre laughter, the Democratic Party is — just as James Carville observed — in shambles.
The party's current fate was further sealed by the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign, which may go down as one of the most disastrous in U.S. political history.
Rather than presenting a clear vision or meaningful policies to address the consequences of the Biden administration’s decisions, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the Democrats focused on attacking Trump — ad nauseam — while also promoting the daylights out of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives, and defending the Biden administration's intentional importation of millions upon millions of illegal aliens.
And last, but certainly not least, Trump continues on a history-making winning streak — all by following through on promises he made to the American people throughout his 2024 campaign.
This brings us back to Carville and his NYT op-ed.
Following Carville's opening paragraph, which I quoted at the top, the veteran political consultant launched into the NYC Democrat mayoral primary win of Zohran Mamdani, who can best be described as naively living somewhere between communism and full-blown Marxism. Let's just say the Ragin' Cajun wasn't at all happy about Mamdani's win:
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary wasn’t an isolated event. It represents an undeniable fissure in our political soul.
We are divided along generational lines.: Candidates like Mr. Mamdani are impatient for an economic future that folks my age are skeptical can be delivered.
We are divided along ideological lines: A party that is historically allegiant to the state of Israel is at odds with a growing faction that will not look past the abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. From "Medicare for All" purists to Affordable Care Act reformists, the list goes on and on.
Ahh, yes — the list goes on and on.
From defending males pretending to be females beating the bejesus out of actual females in female sporting events to supporting on-demand abortion (until birth, in many cases) to defending "the worst of the worst" illegal aliens against legal deportation, the Democrat Party's list of priorities, positions, and policies looks like something from an anti-Democrat satire site.
Toss in the Democrats' manic obsession with Trump, and refusal to offer policies to fix the wrongs of the Biden years, and is it any wonder that even staunchly opinionated Democrats like James Carville have had enough?
"The Democratic Party is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war."
Hell yeah, it is, as Carville wrote, explaining:
It’s necessary to have it. It’s even more necessary to delay it. The only thing that can save us now is an actual savior, because a new party can be delivered only by a person — see Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992.
No matter how many podcasts or influencer streams our candidates go on, our new leader won’t arrive until the day after the midterms in November 2026, which marks the unofficial-yet-official beginning of the 2028 presidential primary contest. No new party or candidate has a chance for a breakthrough until that day.
Not to rain on Carville's pity-party parade, but what Democrat politician — name just one or two — can come anywhere even close to being seen as a "savior" of the Democrat party in 2028?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? California Gov. Gavin Newsom? Kamala Harris? Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz? The fact is, the farther down the proverbial bench you look, the worse the potential "saviors" look. And Carville knows it — I think.
Carville went on to list a number of "demands" the Democrat Party must stand by as the 2026 midterms draw ever closer, and the 2028 presidential election primaries will be here before we know it.
Among those demands (emphasis, mine):
We demand a repeal of Mr. Trump’s spending law is the one word that should define the midterms.
We demand a repeal to protect Medicaid. Mr. Trump’s law will slash roughly $1.1 trillion from health care programs, stripping coverage from an estimated 11.8 million people over the next decade.
We demand a repeal to save the deficit. Not only will the new policy explode the national debt — the Congressional Budget Office estimates it could add $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years...
We demand a repeal to end the endless wars, because the bill boosts military spending to $1 trillion for the very first time.
Last time I checked, the Democrats weren't in a position to demand anything.
Moreover — and who'd a ever thunk it — when even James Carville, of all people, sounds like the voice of reason of the Democrat Party, things aren't looking good at all for a party fixated on its loathing of all things Donald Trump, and clings to radical positions that a majority of Americans oppose.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Hypocrisy on Steroids: Schiff, Senate Democrats Push for New Watchdog to Oversee Trump White House
Near the end of his op-ed, Carville opined:
Soon it will no longer be possible to avoid a brawl between the factions ignited back in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries. But for now, whether you’re the progressive Mr. Mamdani, the centrist former Representative Abigail Spanberger running for the Virginia governorship, or even Elon Musk, we can all agree on one thing: We demand a repeal. Onward to the midterms.
Perhaps James Carville would better serve his plan to resurrect the Democrat Party if he preached more about how out of touch with the American people the party now finds itself, and less about "demands" that were soundly rejected by voters in the 2024 election.
