James Carville may be best known for a single line he uttered during the 1992 presidential race when he helped Bill Clinton defeat George H.W. Bush. The line was "It's the economy, stupid" and it wasn't just a random thought, it was Carville's strategy for capitalizing on voter dissatisfaction with the economy.
Jump forward 33 years and Carville now sees that a very similar message could provide Democrats a way out of the political dungeon they've found themselves in. He's mostly looking at the recent election in which affordability seems to have trumped (no pun intended) every other issue.
Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill — even down-ballot Georgia Democrats — all won with soaring margins because the people are pissed. And the people always point their anger at the party in charge. Rent is out of control. Young people can’t afford homes or pay student debt. We’re living through the greatest economic inequality since the Roaring Twenties.
President Trump has done nothing to curb the cost of what it requires to take even a breath in America today, the centerpiece promise of his 2024 campaign. The people are revolting, and they have been for some time.
"The people are revolting and they have been for some time" is a hilarious line. In any case, Carville says the key to giving Dems a second chance is to make the midterms all about economic rage.
I am now an 81-year-old man and I know that in the minds of many, I carry the torch from a so-called centrist political era. Yet it is abundantly clear even to me that the Democratic Party must now run on the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression.
It is time for Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage. This is our only way out of the abyss...
Just as it was for the Mamdani campaign, raging against the rigged, screwed-up, morally bankrupt system that gave us the cost of living crisis must be the centerpiece of every Democratic campaign in America. Unless you’re the top 1 percent, this touches everybody...
We have to present ourselves as adamantly, even angrily, opposing the system that is preventing younger rural voters from buying homes, jacking up utility bills and keeping grocery prices at astronomical levels. It is vital that Democrats, with some big ol’ cojones, rail against the unjust economic system that has created these conditions.
Is he right? Well, affordability does seem to be the issue that is driving voters at this moment. Of course, the reason affordability isn't great in the first place is that we had record inflation during the Biden administration. That inflation was partly caused by massive overspending championed by Democrats, including one massive bill absurdly labeled the Inflation Reduction Act. (Remember when Joe Manchin became public enemy #1 for trying to limit spending?)
Someone made this slightly silly but memorable chart.
Angry about affordability? Why are prices so high?
— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) November 14, 2025
Blame Joe Biden.
𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓
Trump 1.0 --> NO INFLATION
Biden --> RUNAWAY INFLATION
TRUMP 2.0 --> INFLATION COMES DOWN pic.twitter.com/ly9lR6HZ0R
So, yes, Carville is probably right that shrewd Democrats can escape responsibility for their own mess by suddenly becoming the champions of affordability. It's also true that the party in power usually suffers during the midterms, so they have historical precedent on their side.
But it's also true that President Trump and Republicans can fight for for affordability themselves. And they have the advantage of actually having political power to carry out their plans over the next year. If they can bring some prices down that should limit Democrats' ability to capitalize on the unhappiness with the economy they helped to create.
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