Clinton strategist James Carville says progressive Democrats and 'stupid wokeness' were the reasons for Biden's reckoning in elections across the country on Tuesday

 Democratic political strategist James Carville tore into 'stupid wokeness' as the root of Terry McAuliffe's defeat in the Virginia governor's race as well as Democratic defeats across the board – and pleaded with party members to avert a backlash.

The 'Ragin Cajun' who helped steer Bill Clinton to victory in 1992 aimed squarely at cultural clashes over race, education, and police funding as the heart of the matter, after Repulbican Glenn Youngkin took down McAuliffe by winning over suburban areas that had gone for Joe Biden just a year ago.

'What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don't just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington,' Carville said as he ticked off election results in an appearance on PBS News Hour.

'I mean, this "defund the police" lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln's name off of schools. I mean that — people see that,' he said.

He said Terry McAuliffe got 'caught up in something national' and blamed it for his loss (McAuliffe also has deep Clinton ties). 

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Democratic strategist tore into 'stupid wokeness' and said it was causing a backlash that was suppressing the Democratic vote, after the party suffered a range of losses Tuesday

Voters in Minneapolis voted down an effort to replace the police department in the city where George Floyd was killed. 

Carville blasted activists and progressives for hijacking the agenda and driving down turnout. Youngkin set a record for votes cast for a statewide candidate in the Commonwealth by driving up support from his own supporters.

'It's just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a 'woke' detox center or something," the Louisiana native riffed, while wearing a Louisiana State University sweatshirt and a Tulane hat.

'They're expressing a language that people just don't use, and there's backlash and a frustration at that,' he continued.

'We got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries and change laws,' he said – as Democrats in Washington struggled to agree on President Joe Biden's agenda.

 

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Carville also called out 'defund the police lunacy'

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Voters in Minneapolis chose not to replace the city's police department with a new Department of Public Safety

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Carville spoke on the PBS News Hour

Analysts are still combing over the election results in Virginia, where Youngkin had a wide lead among parents with school-age children, according to exit polls. Virginia parents expressed frustration with school closures. Youngkin also stressed 'critical race theory' that he said was being pushed by Virginia schools, and ran a campaign ad by a Fairfax County, Virginia mother who said her 'heart sunk' at 'explicit' reading material in her son's school class. 

Carville was also referencing a push in San Francisco to rename schools and potential take off the names of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. The city backed down after a public outcry. 

In Buffalo, mayor Mayor Byron W. Brown appears to have prevailed through a write-in campaign against a democratic socialist, India Walton, who beat him in the primary. 

Carville, who boosted Clinton with his 'It's the economy, stupid' mantra, weighed in even as 'squad' member Rep. Ilhan Omar retweeted a message saying progressives would get blamed for McAuliffe's loss, suggesting he didn't run left enough. 

There were echoes of Carville's critique in comments by Sen. Joe Manchin Thursday, although Manchin spoke to economic issues. 

Manchin claimed the US is a 'center-right' country and that President Biden should give up on trying to get the kind of 'major legislation' done that passed under Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. 

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'You wanna know what's wrong with the place? I go to work in a hostile work environment every day,' Manchin said 

'We can't go too far left,' the West Virginia Democrat told CNN from Capitol Hill on Thursday. 'This is not a center-left or a left country. We are a center — if anything, a little center-right country, that's being shown — and we ought to be able to recognize that.'  

'You wanna know what's wrong with the place? I go to work in a hostile work environment every day,' he inveighed, after becoming a center of attention as one of two Democrats in the Senate holding up Biden's economic agenda and demanding changes.

'If you're a Democrat and a Republican is up for election, you're supposed to be against that person,' even if their opponent is 'Donald Duck,' he complained. 

'I just saw it to confirm that we have a divided country … I hope it's a wake-up call for all of us,' the West Virginia Democrat told Fox News' Special Report's Bret Baier about the election results on Wednesday.