Democratic strategist James Carville said some members of his party need to go into “woke detox” after Republicans made gains in races from the Virginia gubernatorial race down to hundreds of school board positions across the country on Tuesday.
“Well, what went wrong is this stupid wokeness,” Carville told PBS NewsHour 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,’ that — people see that.
Carville, who was President Bill Clinton’s lead strategist in 1992 and has consulted for dozens of domestic and international campaigns, blamed the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for pushing too far and too fast on issues such as race and policing.
“[These policies] really have a suppressive effect all across the country to Democrats,” he said. “Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something. They’re expressing language that people just don’t use. And there’s a backlash and a frustration at that.”
“Who could even think of something that stupid?” he continued. “And they’re suppressing our vote. And I have got news for you. You’re hurting the party. You’re hurting the very people that you want to help.”
Carville concluded that this was something the Democratic Party had to focus on changing internally because as things are currently, it’s “annoying people” with “left-wing nonsense.”
He said Glenn Youngkin was successful in his bid for the Virginia governorship because he focused on “relevant issues” and didn’t attack President Joe Biden , instead letting the issues speak for themselves.
“We have got to stop,” Carville said. “We have got to get off of this. These people have got to understand they’re not popular around the country. People don’t like them. And they’re voting because that’s the only way that they can express themselves and how much they disagree with this.”
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