The Democratic Party is terrified of liberal reformism and will not countenance left leaning democrats being in a position to change their plans for austerity and neoliberal orthodoxy.
"I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than the Democrats win by five, because if that happens, they’re hostage to the DSA. Hakeem cannot move. There’s no place for him to go." - James Carville
Polls indicate that democrats can win control of the House of Representatives in the November 3, 2026 mid-term elections. If accurate, left leaning democrats may win some of those seats and those victories would mean that voters are looking for progressive change. But James Carville, eminence grise of conservative democrats, wants to disempower them and their voters before any of them even get to Washington. So great is his antipathy that he would prefer a republican victory to giving the left any opportunity to give Democratic Party voters what they want.
Carville had famously said of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), "I wish they'd take the word Democrat out of their name. I have no idea why the democratic socialists — if you hate the Democratic Party so much, well, then don't use our godd*mn. Go think of your own name.” The tantrum may have been silly but the intent was deadly serious. The Democratic Party will not permit any possibility of change, and even small reforms have been declared off limits. Just in case there was any confusion, Carville said so in public in a conversation with right winger Bill Kristol.
James Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and was among those who developed “triangulation,” a fancy word describing the betrayal of everything that Democratic Party voters wanted. Clinton solidified the support of the Democratic Party’s “big tent” while he dismantled the right to seek public assistance that was first guaranteed by Franklin Roosevelt 60 years earlier. His “reforms” pushed millions of poor people further into poverty, as he also deregulated financial services which brought about the 2008 great recession and bank bailouts nearly 20 years after his first term as president. Clinton deregulated the media and the end result is that a handful of corporations control everything we read and watch. Everything from popular culture to the quality of news reporting has suffered ever since. His Crime Bill sent thousands of Black people to prison while he largely maintained the support of Black voters despite the damage done by him and the collaborationists among the Democratic Party Black misleaders. Carville’s finger prints are all over these policies which proved to be disastrous for millions of people.
The welfare state has been under attack for decades as each inhabitant of the white house cuts more holes in the safety net. We were saved from Barack Obama’s “grand bargain” budget deal with republicans only because of that party’s intransigence. Political gridlock turned out to be our salvation. Congressional Black Caucus member Emmanuel Cleaver stood out from the crowd and rightly decried the move as a “sugar coated satan sandwich.” For good measure he added, “This debt deal is antithetical to everything the great religions of the world teach, which is take care of the poor, aged, vulnerable.”
Donald Trump continued the tradition of building upon what his predecessors have done. Now that he has brought to life conservative fantasies in Proposition 2025, DOGE, and “starving the beast,” cutting government spending in ways that Clinton and Obama and Biden didn’t dare to do, we are told that bringing democrats back into control of congress is an absolute must. But Carville let the cat out of the bag so to speak. If even a few left leaning DSA democrats are elected to congress, the backroom deal making with republicans that is a constant in Washington may be endangered. While voters who are democrats are exhorted to vote blue no matter who, Carville and his ilk have let them know in no uncertain terms that they should at the very least temper their expectations.
The donor class who decide who will or won’t be president are also quite clear. During his presidential campaign Joe Biden promised fat cat funders that he would not demonize them and that he needed them very badly. For good measure he also said, “Nothing will fundamentally change. No one’s standard of living will change.” Although he lied about that. The poor have since gotten poorer, and the rich have gotten richer, and Biden bears responsibility for that outcome. After he lost control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections, he showed his willingness to go along with republican policies that cut Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
Hakeem Jeffries, who may become Speaker of the House of Representatives, was part of that deal-making, signaling that Biden’s moves had his blessing. Of course Jeffries was vetted by the donor class and wouldn’t do otherwise. Now Carville says that Jeffries needs space to move, but on whose behalf?
Lest anyone forget, Jeffries is neither principled nor very smart. Even a modicum of shrewdness would have kept him from holding a secret meeting with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. We don’t know what they discussed, but one can assume that Kushner’s agenda included a request not to investigate Trump or his family or to call for impeachment. Jeffries has already backtracked on his longstanding support of Medicare for All, a much-needed program that has the backing of most democrats. What good does it do Democratic Party voters, particularly Black voters, to so eagerly desire what has proven to be illusory again and again?
If nothing else, we should be grateful to James Carville for reminding us all of the reality of politics in the U.S. The billionaire class calls the shots. Even with a democratic president like Joe Biden, they may pretend that they will provide a Build Back Better bill with some reforms and assistance to working people, but ultimately they will backtrack because that is not what the oligarchs want.
Carville is the public face of the oligarchy. He knows they will not allow any liberal reforms. He wants Jeffries or whoever is Speaker of the House to have that space to do deals and engage in pretense. We should all know that pretense when we see it and remember that the Democratic Party donor class and its errand boys and errand girls hate the left, are pledged to defeat them, and will never give them any quarter.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.
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