Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville said Wednesday that "stupid wokeness," and other Democrat notions like defunding the police helped Republicans tally significant victories and do well even in losing efforts Tuesday.
"What went wrong is just stupid wokeness," Carville said during a televised panel discussion on PBS Newshour on Wednesday. "Don't just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington.
"I mean this 'defund the police' lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln's name off of schools. I mean that — people see that. It's just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a 'woke' detox center or something. They're expressing a language that people just don't use and there's backlash and a frustration at that."
Carville is a veteran Democrat strategist and was a key political adviser for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and is credited with coining the political slogan, "it's the economy stupid," during Clinton's 1992 campaign against Republican President George H.W. Bush.
Democrats lost key races Tuesday including the governor's race in Virginia where Republican Glen Youngkin defeated former Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe by almost 3 percentage points.
Democrat New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy narrowly defeated Republican challenger and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli in a very close race decided by less than 1 percentage point, with some votes still being counted Wednesday night, in a contest that was supposed to be decided by more than 6 points.
Carville pointed to the Virginia race, saying Youngkin had not even run any ads against President Joe Biden, whose approval ratings have tanked during the summer and fall, but rather let the Democrats "pull the pin and watch the grenade go off" on themselves.
"We got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries and change laws," Carville said. "These faculty lounge people that sit around mulling about I don't know what.
"They're not working. Wokeness is a problem, and everyone knows it. It's hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn't say this. But they don't want to say it out loud."
Tuesday's races in both Virginia and New Jersey are viewed by political experts as harbingers of what might come in the 2022 midterms, which could put the GOP back in the majority of the House and Senate.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.