Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville on Monday revealed the message he thinks candidates in his party should “blast on every screen and stage” on the “march” to next year’s midterms: “We demand a repeal.”
Carville, in an op-ed for The New York Times, explained that a “repeal” of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — which the president signed into law earlier this month, making cuts to Medicaid as well as food assistance — should define the midterms.
“It is clear, forceful and full-throated. It must be slathered across every poster, every ad, every social media post from now until next November,” wrote Carville of the phrase, arguing that the word “repeal” should be Democrats’ “core message.”
He continued, “Every Democrat can run on it, with outrage directed not at the president or a person but at this disastrous bill. And the reasons are countless, each one a venom-tipped political dagger.”
Carville — who has previously predicted that Trump’s tax-and-spending law would mark a “mass extinction event” for Republicans in Congress — described the legislation as a “big, steaming doggy nugget of epic proportion, contemptible to a vast majority of the nation.”
He pointed to a CNN/SSRS poll that found about six in 10 Americans oppose the law, and he emphasized that Democrats should “demand a repeal” to protect Medicaid, to limit the deficit, to stop “endless wars,” to help students losing loan protections and to provide for those who could go hungry because of Trump’s law.
“We’ve never had a simpler, more unifying oppositional message,” Carville stressed.
“Soon it will no longer be possible to avoid a brawl between the factions ignited back in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.”
He noted that New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, centrist Virginia gubernatorial candidate former Rep. Abigail Spanberger and even Elon Musk “can all agree” on the “we demand a repeal” message.