Democratic strategist James Carville said in a new interview that Democrats need to focus on issues that Republicans “can’t beef on.”
Carville joined MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday to discuss what the Democratic Party needs to do after election losses in November.
First, he said, the party’s platforms need to be “massively” popular among its base. Second, they have to be ideas that are massively popular across the country, he said.
“Third, it has to be something the Republicans can’t beef on,” Carville said.
The GOP can’t criticize the idea of raising the minimum wage because people, including financers and billionaires, “won’t let them,” he said.
Carville also argued abortion protections can’t be criticized after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Democrats campaigned hard on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling and ultimately succeeded in the 2022 midterm elections.
He added that Republicans can’t criticize tax cuts for people who make $400,000 a year of Democrats running on a platform of using that money to help young people buy or rent a home.
As Democrats are left finger pointing and wringing their hands about the results of the 2024 elections, many question how the party will recover and what messaging it will send to Americans next time.
Carville said he believes it needs to be plain talk, and not messaging delivered in “jargonistic language.”
He pointed to his previous campaign experience, when he said he told educated Democrats that they couldn’t be “too smart” on the economy.
Carville said he told them they had to “just be authentic and to the point.”
