James Carville Has Major Freakout Over The Socialist Wing Of The Party

James Carville thinks Democrats are making the same mistake that helped elect Donald Trump in 2016 – and he says they’re doing it all over again.

In a Politicon video posted Friday, the veteran Democratic strategist blasted the party’s growing crop of Democratic socialist insurgents, arguing they’re more interested in defeating fellow Democrats than Republicans and warning they’ll hand the GOP more victories in the process.

He pointed to a string of primary defeats that have unseated sitting Democratic members of Congress in favor of candidates running even further to their left. In New York, Brad Lander defeated Rep. Dan Goldman, and Democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Democratic socialist Melat Kiros beat sitting Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado. Carville also singled out Michigan candidate Abdul El-Sayed as the case study of what worries him most, accusing him of running a campaign that treats both parties as enemies rather than just Republicans.

For Carville, the roots of today’s fight go back nearly a decade. He called the 2016 election when President Donald Trump was elected the most catastrophic event of this century and put the blame on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whom he described as an insurgent liberal who dragged the Democratic primary into the summer long after the math had settled that race.

“How did Trump win? I’ll tell you how, because goddamn Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president. You hear me, listen to me, I’m telling you the truth.” By Carville’s read, the prolonged primary bled working-class voters out of Pennsylvania and into Trump’s column. “Because Sanders is telling working people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin… that somehow or another it was corporate America. Yeah, it’s corporate. The Democrats are a corporatist party. There’s no difference between the establishment Democrats… Are you kidding me?“

Now Carville sees the sequel writing itself. He argues the new class of socialist challengers is running the same play against Democratic incumbents that Sanders once ran against Clinton, and he wants no part of the popular argument on the left that establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans are interchangeable.

“These people are so f-king stupid I don’t know what to say about it,” Carville said. “So now we have this idea that these insurgent Democrats – and what is their solution?”

His actual complaint runs deeper than a stray insult. Carville argues these candidates aren’t trying to beat Republicans at all. They’re running against their own party as if it were the obstacle, a strategy he considers self-defeating on its face.

“Is their solution to beat Republicans, to run against Republicans? No! Their solution is to beat Democrats like they’re part of the problem. You are part of the problem because you’re a f-king idiot!”

Carville warned Democrats against what he called false prophets, accusing far-left candidates of marketing themselves as superior to both parties in a pitch he thinks collapses under its own weight once the general election arrives.

Carville’s criticism of the far left and Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates hardly makes him a moderate. He still views the Democratic Party as America’s answer and the Republican Party as its biggest obstacle. “It’s not both parties’ faults! One party expanded health insurance, all right? Another party destroyed it. One party balanced the budget and created economic prosperity. The other party destroyed it. One party brought about a deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Another party destroyed it,” he said.

“And all these people, go beat a Republican – then come back and I will respect you,” Carville said. “Until you do that, I have nothing but contempt for you. And somehow or another, among Democrats, something became more important than winning elections. And that became, ‘Oh, I want to feel superior to people.’”

Carville sees the far left of the party as responsible for Donald Trump’s election and, thus, for the current makeup of the Supreme Court. “None of this would have happened, none of it if it wasn’t for the left wing of the Democratic Party,” he said. “If you believe that, blame the left wing of the Democratic Party for the catastrophe that we’re facing right now. Because as much as any group, it’s their fault.“

Watch: