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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville warned Democrats from reviving DEI and woke policies after dominating the midterms, arguing these policies hurt the party.
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 agreed with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., comments dismissing “Woke 1” and argued that returning to those policies would take the party in the wrong direction.
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James Carville warned Democrats not to revive far-left policies after their midterm victories, arguing that the party had made progress moving away from such messaging. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Amazon Studios)
“The DEI people asked me to honor your identity above your humanity. I cannot do that. To me, you’re a human being first. And if we bring this bulls— language back, we’re going to pay for it,” he said.
After the 2024 presidential election, Carville warned that the “stench” of woke politics would cling to the party like a foul smell on a shirt. While he said Democrats had made progress since then, he lamented that some were returning to those policies.
“We’re finally washing the stench of defund the police, communities of color, or every idiotic jack– 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.”
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“I think rural America is the most forgotten part of America,” Carville 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.” (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SCAD)
“And I think to the extent that this whole thing strikes people as another coastal people trying to impose something on the rest of the country, and the rest of the country doesn’t want this, and now we’re talking about bringing it back?” he warned.
Democrat Dan Turrentine, a co-host of “The Huddle,” told Fox News Digital that Democrats largely abandoned social issues leading up to the midterms and focused on the economy and tackling “corruption.”
“Not a single new member from a competitive state or district ran on restoring DEI. Quite the contrary, they stayed away from relitigating settled social issues and focused like a laser beam on costs, chaos, and corruption,” Turrentine wrote. “Many people on our side are considering running for president and, in an effort to create a spark, will say controversial things to select audiences. The winning candidate will be focused on a broad coalition and keep the main things the main thing.”
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“This whole thing strikes people as another coastal people trying to impose something on the rest of the country, and the rest of the country doesn’t want this,” Carville said. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images for The New York Times)
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