How Did America’s Hectoring Liberals Turn Into Hectoring Marxists? Progressively.
By David Bittinger
May 6th, 2026
Political consultants are about as theatrical as your average tax accountant. A notable exception is Democrat James Carville, a reptilian Louisianan angrier and more predatory than a snapping alligator. He set out his political strategy once: “When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.”
Carviile rose to prominence in late-millennium America, a strange place politically and culturally. (The Goo Goo Dolls? The Backstreet Boys?) Seems wistfully strange now, but from 1998 to 2001, the federal budget actually ran surpluses. A major reason for that budget fitness was the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which relaxed the U.S. defense spending binge that had economically crushed that communist empire. Thank principled President (1981 – 1989) Ronald Reagan for that.
Maybe also some grudging thanks to unprincipled President (1993 – 2001) Bill Clinton, who after a shaky first term won re-election through the political compromise strategy of triangulation. This gambit allowed Clinton to co-opt key policies of Republican “budget hawks” in Congress who came to power pledging balanced budgets — and delivered them.
Migrating Republican Dick Morris — a much quieter Clinton political consultant — was behind that strategy. President Clinton, a Democrat who would do anything for popularity, was triangulation-backed into alliance with his conservative adversary Republican House Speaker Newt Gingirich, forming a “team of rivals” more unlikely than Lincoln’s. That odd couple’s beautiful child was those balanced budgets, which today seem antique as etiquette guides. Maybe budget surpluses will reappear in an alternate universe.
Clinton’s loud weapon was his main political advisor Carville. He successfully coached Clinton on outmaneuvering Republicans, blaming a mild recession on President George H.W. Bush. That Bush promised in 1988 — “read my lips” — not to raise income taxes. But two years later, as an old-school budget-responsible fellow, he reneged on that promise. Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” cartooned anyone who failed to recognize the imperfection of the current economy as dumb.
A Carville cartoon also defended America’s Lothario-In-Chief against the hurt accounts of his numerous female playthings from Arkansas to the Oval Office. In 1994 Carville commented on Clinton’s covert companions: “If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”
Always knowing which way the wind is blowing, Carville would never make such a remark in the 21st century. A consultant paid handsomely to advise and galvanize Democrats, his TV-worthy snarks change with the times. Just a few weeks ago he offered this one:
“If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one they should make Puerto Rico and D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F*** it. Eat our dust.”
Back in 1994 you could insult random obscure women as trailer park bimbos star-struck by Bubba Bill. But there’s an insult creeping through 2026 America that’s more depraved. It was articulated there by the Democrats’ lead hitman Carville.
Now Democrats can insult democracy itself (while claiming it’s the incumbent Republican president who is the existential threat to democracy). Carville is the Democrats’ barometer of aggression, of what they can get away with and laugh about. They can even dust off Supreme Court packing, which the grandfather of leftist absolutism FDR famously tried and failed at.
Democrat power brokers are peddling a new proposition in 2026, though it’s couched in fantasies about their own pluralism and the other side’s Nazism. Here’s their true proposition, free of euphemism:
Big fat government is no longer enough. Open borders feeding our global voter drives aren’t enough. Taxing and regulation reaching ever more deeply into every pocket and mom-and-pop business is not enough. No, all that is not enough anymore, not for Democratic Socialists, our aggressive new name.
The message is that America should be — like Chicago — a one-party state. The People’s Republic West.
Brace yourselves, those of you whose knowledge of “progressive” history has not been buried by The New York Times, big-city political machines, and the educational establishment that’s turned most teachers and professors into evangelicals of leftist dogma. The reds are rising again.
If you review the 32 years between Carville’s insulting his president’s paramours and his determination to subvert American democracy, you see how liberal hectoring has accelerated to Marxist-style hectoring and criminal enthusiasm. Sure, two Republicans managed to get elected president during that period (one of them actually a maverick New York Democrat) but those push-back victories were won against a tide of leftist mob rage that’s still rising.
Painful to review what would have seemed impossible not that long ago: America’s financial and cultural capital New York City electing a hardly-concealed communist mayor. Only 25 years after Islamist foes of Western civilization committed mass murder at the World Trade Centers, New York elected a — what?? A pro-Hamas foe of capitalism who in 2021 publicly urged comrades to pursue the “end goal” of “seizing the means of production.”
Did anyone express concern about this horror coming to New York? Actually, a couple great writers did.
“When we hear about rent control or gun control, we may think about rent or guns but the word that really matters is ‘control.’ That is what the political left is all about, as you can see by the incessant creation of new restrictions in places where they are strongly entrenched in power, such as San Francisco or New York.” — Thomas Sowell, 2008.
“The only way that he (Mamdani) could be stopped, if the left and the center and the right were to combine and say: ‘We don’t like each other. We have very little in common. But this man represents the destruction of our way of life.” — Victor Davis Hanson, as Zohran Mamdani’s smiley-faced Marxism approached to ruin New York in 2025.
So how did this happen, this dark ocean of Marxism overflowing New York and other cities? Another of the “Democratic Socialists” (crypto-Marxists) is now the mayor of Seattle. Another almost became mayor of Minneapolis, but was blocked by panicked Democrat power brokers as Bernie Sanders was strategically blocked in favor of Hillary back in 2016.
The Chicago version isn’t exactly Marxist; he’s too dumb to read political philosophy about seizing the means of production. He likes simpler subjects such as education, meaning teacher strikes, and reparations, meaning free money.
Even Thomas Jefferson’s home of Virginia, which in November, 2025 would not have seemed vulnerable to extreme leftist politics, elected as governor a woman posing as a reasonable centrist. Once elected, she ripped off the disguise to reveal a left-wing zealot immediately raising taxes, attacking illegal immigration enforcement, enforcing DEI discrimination, and pushing a one-party people’s gerrymandered republic.
A political “progression” turned the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy to the one of Ilhan Omar and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. In just a few dumbed-down decades, it’s injected malignant cells of Marxism into traditional liberal grievance.
That might have happened because those grievances were at heart poses, and the claimed compassion was always fake. In the era of news delivered by decaying legacy media and prosperity focused on government beneficiaries, the left has shown that it truly believes in nothing except its own power.
This can’t be coherently debated because its advocates have moved beyond debate to threats of violence and actual violence, to suggestions of assassination producing actual assassination attempts, to elections and census counts set up by open borders to recruit many millions of non-citizens. To “F*** it. Eat our dust.”
Civil rights laws protecting necessary rights from discrimination have been succeeded by DEI laws aggressively discriminating against the villain race. Sports venues and locker rooms of girls have been opened to creepy men. Criminals have become victims and victims have become ignored. An immigrant community in Minneapolis was awarded a lavish crime franchise because they vote the right way.
Representative democracy’s free people and free markets have been warned by Carville. He’s something of a Paul Revere from hell. We better take him seriously.
-30-
Long ago Bittinger moved from Chicago to a cheese-based land with Democrats not quite as nefarious as Illinois’. He misses proximity to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the occasional good White Sox game, but enjoys writing for JKN’s savvy subscribers and re-reading “A Confederacy of Dunces.”
Comments 33
Thanks Dave for your time journey through years of Democratic “reveals’ where numerous statements and actions by the Democrats demonstrate the reality of who they are.
I for 0ne am grateful that the “masks are off” and the reality of these cold blooded creatures are being exposed where you can attempt to thwart their ill intentions.
They want us dead, not just defeated in elections. They start in the womb and want to “assist” us to death in our twilight years. All is becoming clear where in the their murkiness of lies and deception, Truth with action can be injected by our side to bring hope.
Remember, there is a God and I am not it, but neither are they.
James Carville is an embarrassment to my home state of Louisiana! Every time he appears in his LSU regalia I cringe for the graduates.
Thank you for a great column David. I can’t put my finger on exactly how, but I think there was a sinister plan by Marxists going back to the 1960s. How did our higher education system evolve into socialist doctrination camps with almost 80% of college students receiving A’s and spending a fortune for useless diplomas? How did we turn our public education system into a gigantic failure factory? It seems that the dumbing down of America was the first step towards this Marxist domination dream.
Excellent!
It goes back 100 years. Look up Antonio Gramsci.
Lee Lygiros’ comment is spot on…Every school n the country should warn students of how this man from Italy developed the “long-game” manifesto for Communism/Socialism long ago. Control schools, and the press, and eventually you control everything. Fore-warning our young of these evils of current reality is the only hope I fear.
Agreed. Gramsci is actually the “man behind the curtain” … not Marx.
If you are possessed of many of man’s deadly sins you are most susceptible to the allure of the Marxist narcotic. Only the most evil and Car-vile peddle it.
“President Clinton, a Democrat who would do anything for popularity..” This is what fascinates me about this column, it exists in a vacuum, in a complete ‘other’ unique dimension somehow detached from the realities around us.
It’s place where Trump (desperate for attention/popularity..) isn’t rage tweeting bigotry and threats at all hours of the night (last seen bragging to school children about the Iran war before nodding off in front of the camera..) It’s a place where we demonize “Blue cities” while the 10 commandments hang in public schools throughout the south (statistically in the lowest academic scoring states.) Where Democrats are Marxist while ignoring the MAGA shift toward Christian Nationalism and an anti-immigrant rhetoric that borders on bigotry/fanaticism. Where some mentally ill nut job with gun is somehow representative of a violent Democratic party (nice to see Kass up and about, sincerely..) but thoughts and prayers for Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were fatally shot at their home, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were wounded in a related, targeted attack. Not to mention Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who took a hammer to the skull and subsequently became a MAGA punchline, starting with Trump’s comments.
Those “trailer park bimbos” you mentioned, the one’s in love with Clinton?? They vote MAGA now, against their own interests of course.
I wish I lived in your world Dave, I’d be spending my doge check on landscaping while depositing my tariff rebate. Gas would be a dollar a gallon and eggs are buy one get one. Oh! And no new wars!! I’d be worried about THE SQUAD versus Madman Stephen Miller or Holy warrior Pete Hesgeth. I could blame all my problems on immigrants and poor people. Sounds like a happier place.
But hey, we do have the White Sox in common. What do you think, wild card?? Need another bat..
WARNING TO ALL JOHN KASS READERS!
He posts his poison here.
Tony Cesare is an alleged serial identity thief.
We uncovered his attempt four years ago. It is all here in living color:
Tony Cesare is a confirmed identity thief.
READ THAT AGAIN: TONY CESARE IS AN ALLEGED IDENTITY THIEF.
Shown in this link is a screenshot of Tony Cesare’s Facebook profile that exposes his alleged identity theft. Tony Cesare claimed to be the proprietor of ‘Tony’s Tap’ in Wisconsin. It all here in living color: name, address, phone number.
See for yourself:
https://www.gardendesignquickstartguide.com/2022/09/come-for-our-durp-burger.html
I spoke the actual proprietor, Tony Pittz. He had never hear of Tony Cesare. I talked with another staff member. She had never seen Tony Cesare.
Apparently, Tony’s Tap in under new ownership. That’s understandable. Running a bar is tiring. Tony Pittz sounded tired on the phone.
Imagine having all of the challenges of running a bar and also having an alleged identity theft attempt by Tony Cesare at the same time.
That’s Tony Cesare.
It gets worse. Please read:
Following our original post of his alleged criminal attempt Tony Cesare denied it. He lied and said we created these images. We didn’t.
Even in the comments here he said that no such place exists. When confronted, he admitted that lie. You can read his admission.
Here are some more of Tony Cesare’s threats and lies. They are in the comments here.
He threatened legal action for exposing his alleged identity theft attempt. He threatened that four years ago. I’m still waiting.
He repeatedly has written that I live in trailer park. I don’t. My home is very nice condo in the San Diego area. It is 3 BD, 2 Bath in a resort-like community. We are selling it. It is listed for sale at almost $600,000. Our new will be a single-family home in an even nicer 55+ community.
Tony Cesare has misrepresented the trailer park. Here is the story:
In 2014 my dear friend, Karen, called me on Easter Sunday. She was in an abusive marriage in Maryland. She pleaded with me to come and rescue her. I did.
I flew on a one-way to DCA. Her horrible husband was out of town on a long business trip. With help, we loaded all of her stuff into a Ryder truck and drove across the country to San Diego.
At the time, largely due to my helping Karen, I gave up my place and needed a new one. Karen asked me to live with her to help her get reestablished.
Our relationship was purely platonic. Separate bedrooms. After leasing an nice apartment for one year Karen decided to invest in a mobile. At first, I objected. The idea of living in a trailer park was distasteful.
But I said, “Well, at least in San Diego we never have tornados.”
Karen asked me to look at homes along with her. I was surprised at how nice the mobile home parks are. There are many. She bought a nice three bedroom with cash for $75,000. The space rental is $700 per month. Very affordable. I totally recommend it.
After a couple of years, I decided to move along. I met my soon-to-be wife. We live in the condo described above. Karen and I remain good friends. We talk often. I am her g0-t0 handyman.
So…who will you believe?
Me? I flew across the country to rescue an abused wife and helped her grow new roots.
Or, Tony Cesare…a confirmed identity thief.
It gets worse with Tony Cesare:
He trolled my dying daughter’s GoFundMe page. Tony Cesare knew that she was suffering from terminal cancer. He trolled a dying mother.
Who will you believe?
Regarding your both-sides-are-the-same meandering, including Trump being as popularity-driven as Clinton was: nonsense.
Trump went to war to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability knowing full well that his approval numbers would decline, and that the 2026 mid-term elections could be more likely to produce an inquisitional Democrat-controlled Congress so anxious to impeach him that they might use his criticism of wind farms.
If Trump had declared that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon but done nothing — as five previous presidents did, well, the Iranian nukes could almost certainly have been used for blackmail or launched toward wherever you chose to settle.
Regarding the White Sox: I’d settle for another bat, another arm, just losing only 99 games.
Didn’t Trump “go to war to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability..” last June, when he bragged that the bombing OBLITERATED Iran’s capabilities?? A lie then or a lie now Dave?? I say now, he was hoodwinked by holy warrior Hesgeth into believing Iranian citizens would rally and topple the oligarchy, I’m certain Trump had already eyed locales for his next golf club outside Tehran.
Great explanation of the “from then to now.) Living in Illinois (a one party state {thanks to Democrat Chicago} I see this condition all the time. Thank you for expressing these truths for all of us, David.
The irony is Carville is no Marxist, and he’ll be cast aside like last week’s trash should his one-party scenario actually unfold.
NOTE: When I wrote above “Where some mentally ill nut job with gun is somehow representative of a violent Democratic party (nice to see Kass up and about, sincerely..) I was referring to John’s pervious column about last weeks shooter, Cole Allen.
WARNING TO ALL JOHN KASS READERS!
He posts his poison here.
Tony Cesare is an alleged serial identity thief.
We uncovered his attempt four years ago. It is all here in living color:
Tony Cesare is a confirmed identity thief.
READ THAT AGAIN: TONY CESARE IS AN ALLEGED IDENTITY THIEF.
Shown in this link is a screenshot of Tony Cesare’s Facebook profile that exposes his alleged identity theft. Tony Cesare claimed to be the proprietor of ‘Tony’s Tap’ in Wisconsin. It all here in living color: name, address, phone number.
See for yourself:
https://www.gardendesignquickstartguide.com/2022/09/come-for-our-durp-burger.html
I spoke the actual proprietor, Tony Pittz. He had never hear of Tony Cesare. I talked with another staff member. She had never seen Tony Cesare.
Let the dems try that sh*t down here in South Carolina.
It’s a generation realizing they can manipulate the masses of the uneducated-educated to fulfill their dorm room, reefer fueled fantasies of them creating their version of Utopia. If schools would once again teach civics and economics . . .
So well said. Thank you
If you control News Media, you control the Nation – is a well known fact orchestrated by Goebbels of Hitler era. And that was why I wrote to Trump’s 1st transition team in 2017 and asked him to form a bipartisan Watch-Dog Committee to supervise and control the media and F*** it the Free Speech. My message got stopped at the big Fatso’s door step and or Trump didn’t care. Even now, he is all about free speech. And let me ask this: how many people are actually into social media and how many read Trump? e.g., my wife gets her news and forms her opinion only from CBS, NBC and ABC black b..ch! And you can’t watch a TV commercial without seeing a black face – not even a white mother with a 7 yr old white boy but who is imagining him to be a black baby lying next to her! And you feel like throwing up after watching that commercial. I invite readers to comment on this!
-Nambi
The so called news media is now totally fragmented. The Founders were wise enough to realize the immutable fact: the government – bipartisan or not – is the very last entity on earth that you ever want controlling news media or any media in fact. The Ministry of Truth ALWAYS degenerates to its opposite: the Ministry of Falsehood. That is why the First is IMO the foundational amendment and bedrock of our country. And no, the Trump administration is not all about free speech. On the contrary. The “jaw boning” of the FCC threatening the inane Jimmy Kimmel and his rants (which whether you like it or not is protected speech) proves it is not.
David. Your opening paragraph is brilliant word smithing. Love it. As far as your analysis goes, I would only add that while FDR lost the “Packing the Court” battle, he did in fact win the war. Initially, as I’m sure you know, the Court blocked all his New Deal programs as patently unconstitutional. After FDR proposed to “pack the Court” all of a sudden Justice Robert’s – a critical swing vote – did a miraculous 180 and started to vote yes for New Deal programs whereby in the past he had often voted no. Justice Roberts got the message. Even though FDR persisted and lost in the Congress, the Court somehow – through “friendly” persuasion ( a massive FDR landslide and Democratic majority) – saw the light and realized the “error of their ways” … LOL. And of course FDR gradually replaced the old guard conservative judges during his four terms with eight new liberal judges that changed – for better or for worse – the very fabric of our Republic. IMO “packing the court” is not a threat to be taken lightly then or now.
Hey Nambi, you hit on the nail on the head with the media. I’m fascinated at how easily the populace is manipulated. Most of the boomer Trump fanboys on this page have also been conned, only they either don’t know, rationalize it, or are too embarrassed to admit it. Kass? He’s too smart to not see through it. I keep saying the oligarchs fund nurse sides and sit back and laugh their asses off as we argue over two corrupt factions who guide us to a largely predetermined result.
Kass has me on a word limit though. I’ll dispense with the my team is better than your team BS. Soon enough you will all see it. Tony C tried to mnessage me to. He’s low rent.
He didn’t, and he has a mortgage. Sad and pathetic attempt to curry favor among the very readers you mock, is that self loathing??
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
Tony Cesare is a confirmed alleged identity thief.
He already has your name. Tony Cesare is already halfway there to steal your identity. He has done it before!!! Danger!!!
If you have a business, a credit card, or a bank account you could be his next victim.
READ THAT AGAIN: TONY CESARE IS AN ALLEGED IDENTITY THIEF.
Shown in this link is a screenshot of Tony Cesare’s Facebook profile that exposes his alleged identity theft. Tony Cesare claimed to be the proprietor of ‘Tony’s Tap’ in Wisconsin. It all here in living color: name, address, phone number.
See for yourself:
https://www.gardendesignquickstartguide.com/2022/09/come-for-our-durp-burger.html
Protect yourself. Report Tony Cesare to John Kass.
“Confirmed/Alleged..” LOL! Oxymoron much, or just moron?? (:
It is marvelous watching you squirm. Your identity theft failed. You failed.
I’m going to be in your neighborhood next week. You can explain why you trolled and harassed my dying daughter.
In the film ‘Taken’ is one of my favorite lines from a father who saved and avenged his little girl, “I will look for you. I WILL find you…”
Sleep well.
Mark Twain is attributed as saying, “If you do not read the newspapers, you will be uninformed, if you actually do read them, you’ll be misinformed.”
What is conservative, rooted in the founding father’s ideas, principles, etc., in the planned bankruptcy that is currently being carried out?
You’re all like trained seals, barking on command.
It’s even worse with the liberals as they agree we should even ask ID to vote!
You all deserve each other.
Yeah Tony, I don’t care for you either!
Well little Bobby since you are in Kass Jail I’ll help you out with a universal response that likely meets word count criteria and can be copied and pasted in all of Kass’ future comment sections.
“I’m little Bobby Maitino. And I’m the world’s foremost authority. I know everything. Trump? Bad. Biden? Bad. Obama? Bad. Democrats? Bad. Liberals? Bad. Republicans? Bad. MAGA? Bad. The Founder’s? Bad. Oligarchs? Very, very bad. All you deplorables on this site are stupid and … bad. This column by (fill in the blank) is wrong, dumb, stupid and … bad.”
Your welcome.
David, well thought out and presented article.
However, the bot Tony, or Riga Toni, a conversational onanist, is the turd in the punchbowl. You deserve better. I am sorry that he killed chat with thoughtful people.
Ahhh, did I crash the grump old guy party Pat?? How exactly did I ‘kill’ the chat, by offering an alternate POV?? HOW DARE ME. Isn’t discussion the point of a comment section? I know it generates traffic, isn’t that a good thing for our host??
Also like to point out that Dave, the author, had a thoughtful response to my rebuttal, and did so w/o resorting to personal insults, more than I can say for you. I’m not the one bloviating my sorid life’s history and shortcomings all over Mr Kass’s blog, look closer, or just wait here…
Shown in this link is a screenshot of Tony Cesare’s Facebook profile that exposes his alleged identity theft. Tony Cesare claimed to be the proprietor of ‘Tony’s Tap’ in Wisconsin.
It all here in living color: name, address, phone number.
See for yourself:
https://www.gardendesignquickstartguide.com/2022/09/come-for-our-durp-burger.html
I spoke the actual proprietor, Tony Pittz. He had never hear of Tony Cesare. I talked with another staff member. She had never seen Tony Cesare.
Apparently, Tony’s Tap in under new ownership. That’s understandable. Running a bar is tiring. Tony Pittz sounded tired on the phone.
Imagine having all of the challenges of running a bar and also having an alleged identity theft attempt by Tony Cesare at the same time.
That’s Tony Cesare.
Thanks, Pat, always good to read your wise observations. I should know better than to engage people with deep-seated problems. Actually I’m working on a column now that touches on political mental illness, but it’s an inherently touchy subject.
Too bad that several loons have settled in to inflicting their rambling, incoherent rants on JKN. Maybe Biden’s mental fitness was an inspiration for them.