Date: 2025-07-04 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028482
US POLITICS
DEMOCRATS ... OPINION
James Carville Helped Silence the Working Class
It’s Time to Bury His Playbook. His era hollowed out the party of
labor, repackaged it for corporate donors, and told working-class
communities to be patient while their jobs were offshored.
DEMOCRATS ... OPINION
James Carville Helped Silence the Working Class
It’s Time to Bury His Playbook. His era hollowed out the party of
labor, repackaged it for corporate donors, and told working-class
communities to be patient while their jobs were offshored.
Original article: https://www.laprogressive.com/election-and-campaigns/james-carville
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I like the passion that is evident in this writing, and agree with much of the underlying 'raison d'etre'.
But I don't like the anger that is also evident.
I am about 5 years older than James Carville ... that is 85 years old. I remember the Clinton win in 1992 and the role that Carville played in that campaign.
I also have some understanding of the broad sweep of aconomic and political history from the end of World War II to the present time.
Clinton, Gore and the Carville strategy in 1992 delivered a political win for the Democrats. The Clinton economy was quite strong and international events fairly positive for the United States.
And then the election 'dead-heat' in 2000 ended up as a loss for Gore and a win for Bush II ... a Republicans.
The Bush II Presidency might have been uneventful ... but 9/11 happened and a lot changed. The Bush response to the 9/11 attacks had a lot of support both in the United Statea and around the world, but it was revengeful and not very strategic. From my perspective, it was essentially 'wrong'.
In the last 25 years, the political landscape of the United States has changed significantly. The core '2-party' structure remains in place, but both of the parties are become increasingly fragmented and less influential. No majority is obviously representative of the whole of the party. Something very similar took place in both parties. The majority in the United States are now the people who think that American politics is broken. Almost as many people now choose not to vote than actually do vote!
This situation has been enabled by a lot of separate factors. All of them need work!
- The media has changed significanly over time. It is much more fragmented, with 'opinion' growing and 'hard news' in decline ... something I see as very dangerous.
- Washington politics has been locked in dangerous dysfunction with little sign of any effective reform emerging. Grassroot politicis is as bad or worse!
- Corporate profits have been at record levels for a number of years ... good for the stock markets and for investors, but not for consumers who have to handle higher prices, nor for employees who have to compete against very powerful modern automation ... not to mention imports from low cost countries around the world!.
The author is absolutely right about the dialog and the dysfunction, but heaping criticism on a little part of the alleged problem is ineffective.
Her view that the ideas of James Carville (JC) are a big part of the problem completely misses the point. Much of what JC promotes is worth embracing .. albeit maybe outdated!
Similarly much of what Senator Sanders and AOC stand for is worth embracing ... and so on. Nobody has all the solution, but as a coordinated team, they can become a very very powerful force for the changes that are needed!
Peter Burgess
His era hollowed out the party of labor, repackaged it for corporate donors, and told working-class communities to be patient while their jobs were offshored.
Written by Carolina Ampudia
May 5, 2025
James Carville is 80 years old. He’s been shaping Democratic Party strategy since the 1970s. And for five decades, he’s played a central role in one of the most devastating political shifts in modern U.S. history: the quiet, calculated massacre of the working-class voice inside the Democratic Party.
Now, in 2025, he’s out there mocking Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying: “Win a Republican seat, then talk to me.” That’s not just smug—it’s delusional. And worse, it shows how deeply disconnected the party’s old guard is from the people it claims to represent.
Let’s be clear: Carville helped design the machine that locked everyday people out of power. His era hollowed out the party of labor, repackaged it for corporate donors, and told working-class communities to be patient while their jobs were offshored, their unions were broken, and their basic needs were turned into bargaining chips.
He didn’t just lose touch. He was never on our side.
Carville wants to talk about electoral strategy. Fine. Let’s talk numbers. The Fighting the Oligarchy Tour—led by Bernie and AOC—has drawn over 177,000 people in just 19 cities. These aren’t coastal elites or curated donors. These are working people showing up—many for the first time in their lives—to say 'enough!' Enough with billionaires writing our laws. Enough with unaffordable healthcare, broken housing systems, and rigged labor markets. Enough with politics as usual.
Carville can’t see that energy because he’s too invested in a broken status quo. His generation of consultants keeps pushing the party to chase moderate Republicans—as if that’s where the future is. But every time Democrats shift right to pick up a mythical “middle,” they don’t just lose votes. They lose their identity.
And here’s the core of it: people don’t want two versions of the same thing. If the options on the ballot are Republican extremism and a slightly watered-down version of it, voters disengage. It’s easier to choose between “one” and “two” than between “one” and “1.2.” The party loses not because it’s “too far left,” but because it’s too afraid to stand for something real.
I’m from the working class. I’ve organized in break rooms and hospital corridors. I’ve fought bosses and built power alongside people who don’t have time for performative politics. What I see every day is a hunger for truth, justice, and clarity. The kind that Carville’s crowd calls “too radical” because it doesn’t fit in a donor’s talking points.
But we are done waiting.
We’re done being told that justice has to be slow. That liberation has to be palatable. That poor people should sit quietly while millionaires debate how much of their humanity they can afford to recognize.
Carville may still think this is his party. But it isn’t.
We are the party now—if it survives at all. We are the renters, the nurses, the organizers, the young people burdened with debt, the essential workers who kept this country running while the political class cashed in.
We are building a new political vision—one rooted in working-class solidarity, global justice, and deep accountability.
And we’re not picking between “1” and “1.2” anymore. We’re demanding a future worth fighting for.
Carville can either get out of the way—or be remembered as the architect of the betrayal we rose to defeat.
Carville and the Clintons betrayed the middle class and working people of this country by turning the Party over to corporations and cramming the Republican NAFTA down our throats thus destroying cities and gutting the middle class. This is still the same Democratic Party and better messaging won’t change their betrayal. Remove the corporate rot and return to FDR like policies for regular people.
Wow the Democrats eat their own .
Do not believe the propaganda.
The REPUBLICANS are not the LABOR PARTY. They do not offer programs to help workers. Yes ,Carville is right, the current Progressive program is just as much a Disney Fantasy as MAGA.
There is a real middle where things work and are not forced .
BTW
Why are all these white collar pundits fawning over the lower class in the first place like we don’t know about robots and AI
Written by Carolina Ampudia
Carolina Ampudia, a recognizable figure in Florida politics, is a dynamic activist known for her work in the state's reform initiatives. Hailing from Ecuador, her advocacy for labor rights and healthcare is evident in her dedicated efforts to secure fair pay for adjunct professors. Carolina champions inclusive and progressive policies. She served as the President of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida and is the current president of its chapter in Broward County. Her vision centers on fostering change, unity, and empowerment for all.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.