'Pure economic rage': DC insider plots path out of the MAGA 'abyss' in scathing editorial

In his latest opinion piece in The New York Times, Democratic party strategist James Carville says the only thing that will persevere until next year's midterm elections is economic pain, which is the reason the Democrats swept November's elections.

Democrats "Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill — even down-ballot Georgia Democrats — all won with soaring margins because the people are p-----," Carville writes.

This anger, he says, is what drives election wins.

"And the people always point their anger at the party in charge. Rent is out of control. Young people can’t afford homes or pay student debt. We’re living through the greatest economic inequality since the Roaring Twenties," Carville says.

And because President Donald Trump has done "nothing to curb the cost of what it requires to take even a breath in America today, the centerpiece promise of his 2024 campaign. The people are revolting, and they have been for some time," he says.

"This offers Democrats the greatest gift you can have in American politics: a second chance," he adds, saying that "Yet it is abundantly clear even to me that the Democratic Party must now run on the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression."

The 81-year-old widely known for his leading role in former President Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, sees the path to Democratic victory.

"It is time for Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage. This is our only way out of the abyss," he explains.

Just as we did in 2018 and even in 2022, it’s all but certain that Democrats will turn out urban and suburban voters in the midterms, specifically the kind of people who vote regularly," he explains.

"At this point, it’s a damn near guarantee for our party, and we must continue to surge these voters. What we must also do is build a platform that helps us permanently uproot the Republican advantage in more rural regions. This can be done only with good old-fashioned economic populism, both in message and measure," he adds.

It really is the economy, stupid, Carville explains, saying that "raging against the rigged, screwed-up, morally bankrupt system that gave us the cost of living crisis must be the centerpiece of every Democratic campaign in America. Unless you’re the top 1 percent, this touches everybody. Even lifelong Republicans know this economy isn’t working."

He adds that Democrats must angrily oppose the system that has prevented younger voters from buying homes, the system that has jacked up utility bills, and the one that has kept grocery prices astronomical.

"It is vital that Democrats, with some big ol’ cojones, rail against the unjust economic system that has created these conditions. Otherwise, we will continue to be viewed as part of it," he writes.

The Republican Party's greatest weapon, he explains, is its ability to get people to turn on each other, so the Democrats have to be focused on this message.

"The era of performative woke politics from 2020 to 2024 has left a lasting stain on our brand, particularly with rural voters and male voters," he notes.

"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 as our response," he adds.

Carville also says the message needs to be a simple one.

"With all this rage, we must also have a bold, simple policy plan — one that every American can understand," he writes.

"In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74 percent approval rating in 2023. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63 percent of U.S. adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62 percent of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80 percent feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility," he explains.

He also says the Democrats need to double down on these policies and promises.

"When 70 percent of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal child care a public good. And darn it, we should not fear that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We’ve already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. The era of half-baked political policy is over," he notes.

As Trump and his cronies continue to line their pockets and the American people suffer, Carville says, a change is and must be in the air, as previously noted in history books.

"If you’re a student of history, the French Revolution is in the American wind. While the stock market soars, Mr. Trump and decades of corrupt and morally bankrupt Republican economic agendas have splintered the very heart of the American economy," he writes.

"The few are getting vastly richer while a crushing tide drowns the many. Yet even as Mr. Trump’s approval sinks to a low point of his second term, Republicans continue to place their faith in an economy built on pillars of sand, while the people scrape by day after day. This can change. It’s time we as a party do, too," he adds.