Veteran political strategist James Carville says the Democrats need to step back and let President Trump and the Republicans fail.
Democrats should “roll over and play dead” to allow Trump and his party’s actions to “crumble” beneath the weight of their contradictions, Carville said in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Tuesday.
This “strategic retreat” is necessary because the Democrats have no leader, and no control over any branch of government, argues the 80-year-old CNN commentator, who was the lead strategist on Bill Clinton’s 1992 election win.
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“The Army has a term for this: ‘tactical pause.’ It’s a vision move — get out of the hour-to-hour, day-to-day combat where one side (ours) is largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions," he continued.
This would be a wiser approach than the “resistance” politics, which he says the Democrats “tried and failed” during Trump’s first term.
“We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia,” he said.
“Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular,” he continued.
Carville predicted that the Trump honeymoon will be over soon, “best case by Memorial Day but more likely in the next 30 days,” he wrote.
Carville’s recent track record on political predictions is a little patchy.
He said in another New York Times column in October that Kamala Harris would win the U.S. election, and was mocked by MAGA commentator Scott Jennings for that incorrect call this week on CNN on Monday.
Carville said in the same CNN appearance that he thinks Trump’s White House will “collapse” over the next few weeks.
He said the best moment for a Democratic Party comeback might still be months away, citing the Virginia governor’s race as “the first moment where we can take the offensive back and begin our crusade again.”
He goes on to say that the opposition party should follow the lead of winning boxer Muhammad Ali’s strategy against fighter George Foreman in 1974, where Ali bided his time and leaned against the ropes around the ring before striking.
In that fight, Ali deployed a “‘rope-a-dope’ strategy,” Carville writes, “retreating to the ropes of the ring, evading punches right and left, absorbing small jabs, until Foreman’s battery was depleted — and in the eighth round deployed a decisive knockout below [sic]."
Aside from that unfortunate typo, readers have pointed out a few other holes in Carville’s proposed strategy.
“One thing Dems could do is stop listening to James Carville, who called the 2024 race entirely wrong and really should just retire,” wrote former journalist Paul Barrett.
“His corny ‘common sense’ is often just pseudo-counterintuitive nonsense. Stand down from trying to stop Trump? Great advice, James!” he wrote on Bluesky.
“In another era [he] might be right... But modern politics is a 24/7 war,” wrote lawyer and project manager Dan Guild in a post on X.
