Longtime political strategist James Carville wrote that President Donald Trump broke the “cardinal rule” of politics by destabilizing the economy with tariffs, calling it one of the most “ignorant acts” in political history.
Carville, a Democrat, made the assertion in a guest column for The New York Times published Monday.
“In what will certainly be recorded as one of the most ignorant acts of political leadership in American history, the president of the United States has now willfully damaged the global economy with his tariff chaos. Not only was this an act of economic warfare, it has broken the cardinal rule in American politics: Never destabilize the economy,” Carville wrote.
And with it, Trump is causing “enormous damage” to his own administration.
To that end, Carville wrote, “Democrats have an opening” but added they can’t “become the story again” as they did with the government funding bill and shutdown debate.
“My fellow Democrats, it’s time we transform our party into a projector for the economic pain of the American people,” Carville wrote, giving guidance to the party on talking points:
Prices: “The most direct hit to working people’s pocketbooks will always be from the cost of daily goods. Making it clear that Trump and the Republicans willingly broke this promise should be in every ad … from now until the midterms.”
Focus on 401(k)s: “Democrats cannot afford to hinge our economic narrative on the rise and fall of a market for the privileged. … But the tariffs are a poison dagger for those who have saved and vested into their 401(k) their entire lives, just to see it depleted by the reckless actions of the president.”
Take the message local: “This is not about us going on CNN or taking to X to complain about the president. The Democratic Party must now take local stories and project them where they matter most.”
“For the entirety of his tenure in American politics, Donald Trump for better or worse has lived on by the grace of the American people’s faith in his economic leadership. Now it is plain and clear … that President Trump never had any idea what he was doing all along. If we avoid the distractions to come and stay focused on the economy, Democrats can take back the one issue that has kept Trump on a respirator all this time,” Carville concluded.
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