James Carville: My Fix for the Confused and Leaderless Democrats [View all]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/opinion/carville-democrats-midterms-mamdani.html

https://archive.ph/o8uAg



Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided. These are the words I hear my fellow Democrats using to describe our party as of late. The truth is they’re not wrong: The Democratic Party is in shambles.

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary wasn’t an isolated event. It represents an undeniable fissure in our political soul. We are divided along generational lines: Candidates like Mr. Mamdani are impatient for an economic future that folks my age are skeptical can be delivered. We are divided along ideological lines: A party that is historically allegiant to the state of Israel is at odds with a growing faction that will not look past the abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. From Medicare for All purists to Affordable Care Act reformists, the list goes on and on.

The Democratic Party is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war. It’s necessary to have it. It’s even more necessary to delay it. The only thing that can save us now is an actual savior, because a new party can be delivered only by a person — see Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992. No matter how many podcasts or influencer streams our candidates go on, our new leader won’t arrive until the day after the midterms in November 2026, which marks the unofficial-yet-official beginning of the 2028 presidential primary contest. No new party or candidate has a chance for a breakthrough until that day.

Until then, we must run unified in opposition to the Republicans to gain as many House seats as possible in the midterms, because every congressional seat we gain in 2026 means we will be more likely to bring about change in 2028. And there’s good news on that front. There’s plenty of tantalizing political scandal surrounding the president right now. But issues of moral or ethical concern are almost always more powerful when they’re self-inflicted. Let President Trump rope-a-dope with MAGA on the Jeffrey Epstein case and don’t get in the way.

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