James Carville blames “woke-era” politics for Democrats’ losses

Political strategist and commentator James Carville accused Vice President Kamala Harris Loss due to her party’s failure to distance itself from “woke-era” politics.

Democrats have endured a tough series of defeats in recent days, with Donald Trump securing a second term. The GOP has since regained control of the Senate and now appears poised for a majority in the House. Many from both sides of the aisle have since engaged in post-mortems of Harris’ campaign, trying to determine the factors responsible led to this shift.

Peter Loge, former senior adviser to Barack Obama, said Newsweek that America had entered the “I knew it all along” phase of “post-campaign punditry.”

During the last episode of him Politics war room On the podcast, Carville outlined the “big, big mistakes” he said the Democratic Party made in the 2024 presidential election.

Carville said what “killed” Democrats in this election was a “sense of shame” among the electorate, which he said was contributed to by “the unfortunate events of what I would call the ‘Woke Era.’ would have.”

“We did it,” he said. “But the image stuck in people’s minds that Democrats wanted to defund police, wanted to empty prisons… it created a sense of shame.”

Carville also pointed to the party’s initial support for President Joe Biden’s re-election and the process of selecting another candidate after his withdrawal in July.

“With Biden staying home for so long, we didn’t have a trial,” Carville said. “We had all this untapped (talent) on the sideline.”

Carville noted that Harris rose to the top of the party list almost immediately, bypassing the competitive nomination process that candidates traditionally must complete. This decision, criticized by some as undemocratic, was touted by others as the cause of the vice president’s eventual defeat.

“If we had had some kind of open process it would have been much better,” Carville added. “It could have been worse, but it could have been much better.”

Carville, who coined the maxim “It’s the economy, stupid” before Bill Clinton’s 1992 election victory, also called inflation an additional “mark of shame” for voters.

Although Carville occasionally disapproved of elements of her strategy, she was a champion of Harris throughout the election and was one of the most prominent voices predicting her victory.

In his October 23 editorial for The New York Times“Three reasons I’m sure Kamala Harris will win,” Carville wrote: “America, everything is going to be okay. Ms. Harris is elected as the next President of the United States. I’m sure of that.”

Carville cited the “streak of bad luck” as proof The Republican Party, including Trump, had held out since 2018, Harris’ fundraising ability and his own political instincts –“It’s just a feeling.”

Among other sayings Carville used during Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign was that elections were won and lost on the promise of “change vs. more of the same.” He said the Harris team had failed to pay attention to this “fundamental principle of policy.”

“Change wins elections,” Carville said, before appearing to reference a recent NBC News poll that found 65 percent of registered voters see the country as “on the wrong track.”

“In a country that is 65 percent on the wrong path, we gave people the same path,” Carville said.

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