James Carville, the Democrat strategist from the Clinton era who somehow manages to keep reappearing, has some stark warnings for the new Democrat majority. On Thursday, Carville appeared on a podcast called "Politics War Room" and warned the incoming Congress and other Democrats against bringing back some of what Carville rightly points out are some of the Left's dumbest recent ideas — like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI.
And, about that, credit where credit's due; he's not wrong.
Carville spoke with a panel on Thursday’s episode of the "Politics War Room" podcast about the Democrats' midterm victories before responding to a statement from Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., declaring that "DEI is back."
"I really like him. He's a very personable man. I think these people are all wrong," Carville reacted. "They tried DEI. The country hated it. Just hated it. It cost us seats."
Carville also pointed out that even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) can, like the proverbial blind squirrel, find an acorn every now and then.
Carville agreed with comments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., dismissing "Woke 1" and argued that returning to those policies would take the party in the wrong direction.
Bear in mind that Carville, a Clinton creature, hasn't really changed his tune all that much since the Clinton presidency; bear in mind also that the Bill Clinton of, say, 1995, after the 1994 drubbing he took in his first midterm election, would be considered a flaming right-winger by today's Democrats.
But there's where Carville makes one very interesting point:
"We're finally washing the stench of defund the police, communities of color, or every idiotic jacka-- academic word that [they] could think of. And we got rid of it. And AOC is right. Woke one was some crazy s---. Let's all go back and do it," he said. "Let's have progressive taxation. Let's have pluralism in America. Let's get out of Iran. Let's open rural hospitals. Okay, these are things that we can agree on."
Carville explained that he is a liberal, not a progressive, and wants to help rural Americans who may feel abandoned by the Democratic Party.
"I think rural America is the most forgotten part of America," he said, warning that his fellow Democrats need to be "talking about the problems of rural America or rural hospitals or rural education or rural libraries or anything else."
He's correct in that. Rural areas have been largely ignored by national Democrats for some years now, as they have been consolidating their power base in the major cities, having become the party of socialists/communists, urban elites, and the dependency class. And that's what's going to hurt them moving forward; as Carville is perhaps predicting here, they will inevitably push horribly unpopular policies way too far. They will be pushing for boys and men in girls' and women's sports, they will be pushing for increased taxes across the board, they will cut off all the work that's been done trying to rebuild our armed forces, and they will try their best to enact new and oppressive gun control laws. These are all things that will cost them in rural and suburban areas, aside from the stupidity of DEI programs and all the trouble that comes with that.
When someone's right, he's right. In warning Democrats about this, James Carville is right. Let's hope that the Democrats don't listen to him. I mean — he's just another old white guy, right?