Howl, howl, howl! O you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack.
She’s gone forever. I know when one is dead and
When ones lives; She’s dead as earth.
Lend me a looking glass; if that her breath will mist or stain the stone. (King Lear, V.3)
Imagine James Carville, Democrat shaman, electoral savant, and once President Bill Clinton campaign advisor, screaming his displeasure at the current leadership of the Democrat Party and figuratively carrying the body of his dead party alone. Last year, Carville declared that “my party” has been “hijacked,” presumably by the extreme “left of his party.” But did they poison it by, say, swallowing the Green New Deal, DEI mandates, “climate justice,” etc.? Carville is basically irrelevant inside and outside the Democrat Party, but it’s interesting, not to say salty, to hear his commentary, inaccurate as it might be. But has the extreme Left killed his party.
Though the words above belong to William Shakespeare’s tragic play King Lear as Lear carries the body of his dead daughter Cordelia, his favorite, they seem to reflect also Carville’s deep disappointment with “his party.” The back story is King Lear gave up his royal authority by revealing his plan to will his kingdom equally to his three daughters, much like Joe Biden turned his party over to others in fall 2024. Similarly, proud Lear wanted all three to reveal their love for him. Daughters Goneril and Regan gave such hyperbolic and high flung expressions as to appear insincere, while the youngest Cordelia was more measured but sincere:
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love Your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less. (Cordelia I, 1)
With that, the Shakespeare play spins its story toward the tragic ending above. These words Carville could also speak of his current state of mind about his party. Since Election Day 2024, bipartisan pundits everywhere and of every shade of political thought, have been declaring that the Democrat Party is on life support, if not dead. With no clear leader, Carville counsels, “roll over and play dead” and Trump’s momentum will collapse. Play dead?
Much has to do with the candidates the Democrats offered last fall in place of President Joe Biden who declared he was stepping down from the race following his abysmal debate performance. The affection for him had drained away. Karine Jean Pierre said the Democrats formed a virtual “firing squad.” Proud Biden, however, still really believed, as he at last departed Washington, that he could have beaten Donald Trump. As we all now know, these words of Lear fit very well:
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind. (Lear, IV. 7)
Lear had lost his mind in all the intrigue brought on by his foolish revelation of his planned legacy because it actually ignited a couple of other subplots in his kingdom. So it was with the Democrat candidates and what we have learned since: “Kamala, would you have done anything differently if you had it to do all over again?” Her reply: “I can’t think of anything.” Carville lost his “mind” with that and said the Harris campaign can be “boiled down” to that! Carville though did say he was “100% sure” Kamala Harris was going to win. What happened?
About the prospects of a Trump victory, Carville explained, "I refuse to believe that the same country that has time and again overcome its mistakes to bend its future toward justice will make the same mistake twice. America overcame Mr. Trump in 2020. I know that we know we are better than this." Whatever he means by that, Carville now warns Democrats by telling them to sit back and watch Trump hang himself. Like Lear:
Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! (Lear, III.iv.)
Again, Carville, like the Democrat speakers and their media allies, has not yet learned the lesson of the people’s vote last November. Polling shows seventy percent of voters approve and believe Trump and his DOGE department are doing what Trump was elected to do. They are cleaning up massive waste and inefficiency in government, often spawned by Democrat leadership, and doing the will of the people, Carville notwithstanding. Their production “scorecard” is incredible! Here are few samples found by the Department of Government Efficiency:
$446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal through the State Department.
$14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border through the State Department.
$20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador through the State Department.
$32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru through the State Department.
$3,315,446 for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean” through USAID.
$2.5 million to build electric vehicle charging stations in Vietnam’s largest cities through USAID.
That is about one fourth of my brief collection. Are you glad your tax money is being spent like the above? Remember, we are borrowing the money for this. In effect, China holds our mortgage! So much for finding waste and fraud in the swamp that President Trump is trying to “drain”. With all the legal issues his opponents threw at him in his first term, he could hardly take aim. In Democrat circles, these expenditures are called “investments.”
It remains to learn who else profited besides the particular recipient of this kind of funding. Who were the people who shaved off the top or banked the whole check? Apprehension and prosecution will take years. Incredibly, the Democrat leadership and favorable courts are trying to obstruct the search. Take names and remember for your vote in 2026.
Is this not Exhibit 99 that the saying was true, “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.” —Ronald Reagan.
Robert Penny is a Northsider.
