The problem for James Carville, though, is he’s also to blame for the state of the party. He fostered a reputation for years as an underhanded and ruthless political operative; a sort of Roger Stone or Steve Bannon of the left. This is the same James Carville who defended Bill Clinton with the famous line about dragging a dollar bill through a trailer park — a reference to Paula Jones filing suit against Clinton which ultimately led to a special prosecutor and impeachment. Carville was a staunch ‘defend at all costs’ Clintonista that helped weaponize a media narrative against accusers such as Jones, and victims such as Monica Lewinsky.
Carville himself occupies a warm spot on the straight line of history that can be traced from the Clinton presidency to the Trump presidency, and much of how Trump was defended over the course of his impeachment by his party and his base is taken straight from the Clinton playbook. He’s a key figure in the coarsening of American politics, and a reason why the tribes fight to the death online over the conch on Twitter on a daily basis.
In 2016, Carville acted as a volunteer surrogate for Hillary Clinton, rebuffing everything from the Clinton Foundation’s shady associations to Hillary spilling classified information from an unsecured private server.
It’s as though Dr Frankenstein is warning about the damage his monster might cause to the village.
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