Bulwark Takes - Tim Explains Why James Carville Pisses People Off

Episode Date: November 29, 2025

James Carville, the “Ragin' Cajun,” is back with his view on the Democratic Party and once again, it’s all about the economy. Tim Miller gives his take on Carville’s latest New York Times column, where he argues that Democrats need a clear, unapologetic focus on economic issues to unite the party and win over voters. From government shutdowns to the pitfalls of “performative woke politics,” Tim digs into what Carville calls the era of "economic rage" and why it could be the key to future Democratic victories.

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slash audio boom to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash audio boom. Hey everybody. Timo from the Bullwork here. Earlier this week, my man James Carville,

the Raging Cajun, did a column in the New York Times. Every time Carville does a New York Times column, there is this deranged reaction to it. I mean, kudos to the man. It shows his skill of getting attention,

I guess. When it comes to James, the way I see it, most of the time he's right. Sometimes he's wrong. It's like any one of us. Probably would have benefited the Democrats to listen to him a little bit more back in 2022 and 2023 when he was the one out there saying that Joe Biden was too old to run and that he moved to the left on cultural issues was hurting the party.

Seems that is objectively correct at this point. So, you know, he's got some hits from time to time. This week's call, though, I find both correct and also a little bit obvious. It's kind of like an intensified version of the tune that James has been singing, the old Zidico tune he's been singing since like 1988 or so. And yet the reaction to it was pretty funny. Once again, he's always a lightning rod. So let's take a look at the column here and then I'll give you my two cents.

Headline, James Carville, out with woke in with rage. New York Times knows what they're doing, trying to get clickbait there. He doesn't even really get to woke until about halfway down in the article. So we'll talk to that. I want to talk about where he really begins and what his focus is, and that is the rage part of the headline about how the Democrats need to be the party that is enraged, that the economic system is failing Americans. He begins writing that, you know, we're a couple weeks of the government shutdown now and nobody's even talking about it anymore. Government shutdowns don't impact the midterms. That's what he's been saying the whole time.

And that the only thing that will actually persevere, the only thing that will, from right now, that will be relevant next November is the economic status and economic pain. The only thing that will persevere is the state of the economy and the economic pain that people are feeling. Carville, you know, basically makes a case for how Democrats can deal with that. I want to read a little bit from the part that's getting a lot of attention. I am now an 81-year-old man. He's making sense for an 81-year-old man. The mind is still strong.

I'm now an 81-year-old man, and I know that in the minds of many, I carry the torch from a so-called centrist political era, yet it is abundantly clear even to me that the Democratic Party must now run the most populous economic platform since the Great Depression. It's time for the Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic, and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage. This is the only way out of our abyss. To me, it's just, it couldn't be more abundantly clear.

that this is true. I think that it is a fair critique from people on the Bernie left that the, you know, campaigns at the establishment democratic campaigns, particularly the Clinton and Harris campaigns, did not focus enough on this or to use a lefty term, did not center this enough. I think that, you know, I asked vice president about this last week, actually. And I think that she said, you know, that they did talk about. She referenced how she talked about the sandwich generation, the economic pain, the sandwich generation was feeling. And so, to me, it was a little bit less about whether they talked about it and what they said than the emphasis.

Like, what was the emphasis? Did you sell to voters that the thing you cared about was their economic pain and you were passionate about it? What's the word that Carville uses here? Was there an altogether unmistakable platform of economic rage? Of course not. No, it was not unmistakable. It was a little bit mixed in with a bunch of other issues. And, you know, some voters are only going to hear one or two things about you. Some voters are only going to sense a couple of things about you. And I don't know that Clinton, or even really Biden to that, to be honest, in his successful campaign, or Harris, left an unmistakable impression upon people that they were fighting on behalf of their economic pain.

And so I think that Carville's message there is right. That is what has left a lot of people who are, you know, who kind of are in the Bernie side of the party to say like, duh, where are you all been? Where are you all been? And like I said, I think that's a fair critique of the Democratic campaigns and the more established Democratic campaigns.

It's not really a fair trick of Carville. I did find this funny as I was kind of going through social media, looking at the reaction to this. A lot of people like, we even have James Carville on board now. And I'm like, you know, I get that not everybody's getting old like me, and so they might not remember the 92 campaign. I mean, Carville has been saying it's the economy stupid. We should focus on the economy for his whole career. I know if he's known for anything, it's for it's the economy stupid. This notion that the party should focus on economic

issues and attack to the middle on social issues, I guess it's been something that Carville has been arguing since before Zoron, Mom Donnie was born. Right. So I get a lot of the younger Zoron fans are like, we've won over Carville. It's like, okay. I think you're winning the argument. And that's good. And I think that it's good when other people pick up this refrain on the left because I think it's a useful one, particularly in contrast with MAGA and with what's happening with Trump right now in his gilded ballroom and gilded palace with his, you know, Silicon Valley oligarch buddies. But I just, you know, I just got to defend my man, the raging Cajun's honor here on this one a little bit because he's been doing this since you were in short pants, no matter who you are, unless you're burning. I guess. Carville's been doing this for quite some time. So let's get to the second part of that argument. Like, what does that mean out with the woke in with this economic populism? Here's

Carvel. For this to work, we can't get sidetracked on our message. The Republican Party's greatest weapon has always been its uncanny ability to turn us against one another. It cannot be said enough. The era of performative woke politics from 2020 to 24 is left a lasting stain on our brand, particularly with rural voters and male voters. The term Latinx, or Latinx, as I like to say, It was despised even by many Latino people. Calling folks bi-Poc should never have been a thing. Defund the police was terrible idea. Poings shows that nearly 70% of Americans think the Democratic Party is out of touch

and it's more interested in social issues than economic ones. We can no longer be a party with a whiff of moral absolutism. We can correct this only by looking toward the future always in every situation possible and pivoting to a form of economic rage is our response. It is right. Look, we can, and I've had this out with James and we can keep doing this. We will do it just for kicks from time to time. time on the show. You know, you can debate the degree that like, this is even the Democrats

fault. Like, how much did the woke stuff get out of hand? You know, like on most things, I take kind of a moderate middle of the road view on it. And I think that there was some overreach for sure. I could tell you some stories about taking my kid to tour kindergartens in the Bay area. Whoa. You know, some of the shit, they'd be talking about turning those tours. I was like, okay y'all let's let's let's reel it back in let's reel up back in on on uh you know teaching kindergartners about like the black panthers path to social justice so you know sure there was overreach on various things absolutely is it unfair in part yeah sure of course is there an obsession with certain groups of people with litinks and and defund the place yeah

of course but like as a broad again this takes us back to the first point about unmettings I don't know that any one of those issues really would have mattered that much. I do, as I've said many times, I do think it would benefit a Democratic candidate to have a heterodox opinion on one social issue. I literally don't care which one it is, just something people, the people know that you're not like just a automaton NPC that, you know, regurgitates every single lefty position on every single social issue. Like, there's got to be something that you think, you know, a little bit differently about.

So I think that'd be good. But I think that a Democratic candidate could limit their exposure to risk in a lot of these issues, the way Zoran did. Like, Zoran said a lot of the stuff. He's around in New York City. So let's just say that. But the way he did it in the Oval Office, the way he did it on the campaign, which is to make sure everybody knew what the thing that animated you was. The thing that animated him was the free buses and the city run grocery stores and the cheaper rent and the rent freezes. And, you know, it was affordability.

It was the halal trucks getting that red, get rid of the red tape. Yes, they could sell their yummy delicious food a little cheaper. Like, that was what motivated him. Anybody that paid attention to the race at all knew that that was what motivated him. And so the hits on him didn't really land as much because people were like, eh, you know, and he's not up, he's not a, maybe on Israel and Gaza. And so that's why he saw a lot of folks for whom that was an important issue vote against him. All the other stuff, on the train stuff, and then he from the police, like he took the air

out of the critics balloon because nobody really believed that that was the stuff that he cared about because he was so committed to making affordability at the heart of his campaign and his public image. And to me, that's the lesson for the Democrats. And that's the lesson from this carval thing about what the woke in with the rage. It's like, you know, if you did a pronoun tweet five years ago, it's fine. But like, de-emphasize all that stuff, personal and emphasize tangible specific things I can already hear JVL in my head he'll be like

Harris did de-emphasize that stuff he didn't she didn't talk about any of that stuff at the convention any of the lefty cultural stuff and that's true she did but she didn't emphasize something else she's allowed herself to be defined because she didn't define herself clearly enough

for enough voters around a specific topic or issue that they care about and upcoming elections that issue for almost every Democrat is going to have to be addressing the economic woes, the people and the inequality and the, you know, way to which the elites are playing by different rules that they are. So, anyway, Carville, nails it once again. He's been on this for a minute, though, you little whippersnappers. All right. Don't come

running around here thinking you invented this, but he, uh, uh, I think brings a clarity to kind of this discussion. And lastly, he brings a clarity to it in a way that like, there's no reason that 80% of the Democratic coalition can unite around all this. You know, there are going to be some Democrats that get really flustered with whatever, with some of the economic populist policies, some of the center Democrats. And there are going to be some progressive activists who care very deeply about cultural and social issues that maybe get flustered with some of the attacking to the middle or deemphasize. of some of the things they care about.

You're never going to be able to please 100% of the coalition. But I think that this is a way to unite a whole lot of folks around one vision, everybody from Sohron to James Carvel as a pretty good place to be if you're a Democrat. All right, subscribe to the feed. Give us a like, comment, go to the store. We're going to have a Black Friday sale coming up. We've got some new merch. Hope to see you all here soon.

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, all birds or skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling, and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not-so-secret secret, with shop pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going So if you're into growing your business,

your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout skim's uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash audio boom, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com

audio boom to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash audio boom.