Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville rebuked progressive members of his party for their use of "nonsense" identity politics rhetoric, and explained why he wanted to encourage Democrats that Vice President Kamala Harris would win the 2024 election.
In a New York Times op-ed this week, Carville reassured anxious Democrats that Harris would win the 2024 election, despite a new national poll showing the race is a dead heat between the two candidates. He argued that former President Trump is on a losing streak, Harris has more money, and he "just has a feeling" that she will be the victor.
Carville said on the "Politics War Room" podcast, that he gave this pep talk to Democrats because a "depressed party is not a winning party."
"Above all, you’re never any better than you think you are. And Democrats – this is kind of a tied race – and they will lapse into profound depression. And a depressed party is not a winning party. And so anything that I can do to address that kind of depression, I’m glad to do it," Carville said. "And I’m glad the Times gave me the platform. And I was happy to write it and I think all the things I said are valid and true and, you know, hopefully they’ll all come to fruition."
Both candidates are tied with 48% of the popular vote, according to a New York Times/Siena College survey of 2,516 likely voters nationwide between Oct. 20 and Oct. 23, which has a 2.5% margin of error.
The straight-talking political operative also offered sharp criticism of the progressive left wing of his party, suggesting the way they talked was alienating to voters.
"By the way, no Democrat, anywhere, is uttering any of this identity politics nonsense. No one," he said. "You don’t hear anyone using terms like Latinx. Communities of color…. The word is so stupid I don’t even want to pronounce it right."
Carville elaborated on this after a listener's e-mail asked him how he can "teach" Democrats, including Vice President Harris, to use less "complicated" and "overly sophisticated" language when talking to voters.
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"It’s been a problem. I couldn’t agree with you more. I think we are trying to extricate ourselves from it a little bit. I think people are trying to speak a little cleaner or crisper. The problem is there’s a lot of part of liberal culture that still insists on using this jacka-- language," he said.
"This morning, I was listening to NPR – which, again, I find on one hand quite informative and on the other hand maddeningly frustrating – talking about this ‘vegan community.’ Does any normal person use the term ‘vegan community?’" he ranted.
"I have no idea. Where do they meet? What are they part of? What do they do? I mean, I know plenty of people that are vegan. But I don’t know that they are some [group]. – everything is a community. That is the favorite Democratic word that ever existed, which I don’t mind it. I like being part of a community. But it just says something – sends so many coded signals out to so many people that they don’t even realize," Carville continued.
While talking to MSNBC's Ari Melber this week, Carville warned about a doomsday scenario if Trump won the election. He warned journalists talking about polling that shows Harris' support among Black men and Hispanics is slipping, arguing the media needed to focus on hyping the stakes of this election.
"People want to know about [Harris' polling] weakness among males of color. Okay? He’s gonna arrest all of ya," he told the media. "You think you don’t have a stake in this election? Guess what? You’re not gonna do very well, I’m not gonna do well. You’re not gonna do well, Ari."
Fox News' Greg Norman and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
