Help Us Break the Two-Party Stranglehold, James Carville

James Carville is threatening to leave the Democrats if socialists keep advancing. James, if you can figure out how to launch a viable centrist third party and break the bipartisan stranglehold, we socialists would welcome it.

James Carville speaks onstage during Angel Ball 2015 on October 19, 2015, in New York City.

James Carville swears he won’t stay in the same party as Hasan Piker. Fine. To make a centrist third party viable, Carville and his friends would have to win reforms like ranked-choice voting, turning the US into a real multiparty democracy at last. (Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation)


With his bald head, glasses, and Cajun accent, political consultant James Carville was long one of the most iconic representatives of the Democratic Party establishment. In the 1990s, he was often seen as a kind of consigliere to President Bill Clinton. In the 2000s, he was everywhere on cable television offering up his characteristic mix of colorful zingers and boilerplate liberal politics.

Now he says he’s considering leaving the Democrats altogether. In multiple interviews, he’s raged against the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and left-wing influencer Hasan Piker. In an appearance on Fox Business earlier this month, he expressed amazement at “this idea that we’re going to seize the means of production” and urged viewers to “just go look at the DSA platform.” (I agree.) At one point, he said:

I am not going to be in the same party with Hasan Piker, I can tell you that right now. If he becomes a force in the Democratic Party, I’m outta here. I have no intention of ever being in the same political party with that guy.

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