Democrats are fighting a civil war over whether socialists get to pick their 2028 nominee.

AOC’s wing keeps winning primaries. The old Clinton crowd keeps losing sleep.

And James Carville just fired a shot at one famous senator that was really aimed somewhere else.

The Ragin’ Cajun Picked a Fight Over Bulk Paper Towels

Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville used a recent episode of his Politicon podcast to unload on US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and he didn’t bother cleaning up the language.

He went after Warren’s long habit of picking fights with big corporations. One company in particular had him hot under the collar.

“Who in the **** is against Costco?!” Carville asked.

He sounded genuinely wounded on the warehouse chain’s behalf. “It’s the most integrated place in America,” Carville said. “I mean, it just is. People go in there, and people have terrible issues with food costs, and this and that. The stuff there is pretty good. I mean, I go.”

But Carville had more on his mind than rotisserie chickens. He told listeners the Democrat Party is “drowning in salt water” and needs “fresh water” for 2028, and he urged Democrats to find candidates from somewhere other than California, New York, or Massachusetts.

“Cosmopolitan triumphalism or metropolitan arrogance has hurt us and people have recoiled against it,” Carville said, adding that blue-collar voters in Middle America don’t feel any “connection” to his party.

Look at that list of states again. Massachusetts is Warren country. New York belongs to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the DSA-backed darling the far left wants at the top of the 2028 ticket.

Carville never said AOC’s name. He didn’t have to.

Warren Really Did Put Costco on Her Enemies List

Carville didn’t dream this up, either. At a Senate Banking subcommittee hearing in May 2024, Warren named Costco alongside Walmart, Kroger, and Ahold as four companies she said control more than 70 percent of the grocery market in most major cities.

“In plain English, giant grocery stores and massive food conglomerates are ripping people off,” Warren said in her opening remarks.

That’s vintage Warren. Every price hike traces back to some corporate villain, and every villain needs a fresh federal crackdown.

The funny part? She flipped the script at a hearing this year, holding up Costco’s low drug prices as a club to swing at President Trump’s TrumpRx initiative. So Costco plays the villain when Warren talks groceries and the hero when she needs a stick for Trump.

And Carville put his finger on the detail that ought to sting Democrats most. Costco and co-founder Jim Sinegal have been prominent Democrat donors. Carville called the company “historically the most Democratic corporation in America.”

“And we’re against Costco! I mean, give me a freaking break. I mean, really?!?” he said.

Picture that from the other side of the counter for a moment. The party’s own strategist had to remind a sitting Democrat senator not to bite the hand writing the checks.

The Clinton Crowd Has Been Begging for a Divorce

None of this came out of nowhere.

After Mamdani-backed candidates swept New York’s Democrat primaries in June 2026, Carville went on his podcast and called for a formal split. “I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk ‘the S-word.’ ‘Schism.’ I really do,” he said.

He singled out Darializa Avila Chevalier, a DSA candidate who won a congressional primary with the backing of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “She is not a Democrat, okay?” Carville said. “That is pretty clear, and frankly, I think a lot of Democrats feel like I do. I don’t have any power, just an old washed-up consultant, but I wouldn’t seat her!”

His running feud with AOC goes back years. When Carville told a New York Times columnist in 2024 that “there are too many preachy females” in his party, Ocasio-Cortez mocked him on social media. Back in 2021 she had already accused pundits like Carville of using the word “woke” to insult younger voters.

So the Costco rant fits the pattern. The Clinton-era consultants watch the DSA crowd move into the house they built, and they throw whatever they can grab at the front door.

Carville’s Fresh Water Comes Out of the Same Old Tap

But nobody should mistake Carville for a conservative. He says so himself.

“I am a proud liberal. I am not a leftist,” Carville said during another podcast rant aimed at the radical wing. He followed up by describing government as a partner that helps people get educated and secure their retirement.

That sums up the whole quarrel. Carville has no problem with big government. His problem is a left wing that scares off the voters Democrats need to keep building it.

And those Middle America voters have good reasons to keep their distance from both factions. What the media likes to call Warren-style populism comes packaged with wealth taxes, Washington, DC muscling in on whole industries, and an open-borders agenda that pours illegal aliens into the labor market to compete with the same blue-collar workers Carville says his party lost. The same Democrat Party defends transgender surgeries for kids and treats anybody who objects like a bigot.

A Costco card doesn’t paper over any of that.

The populism that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 looks a lot different. It runs on secure borders, mass deportations, and tariffs aimed at bringing factories home. Working folks noticed which side was talking to them.

There’s a little history lesson buried in this, too. Democrats rewrote their nominating rules after 1968, and the reforms helped the left-wing insurgent George McGovern grab the 1972 nomination over the party bosses. He lost 49 states.

The Democrat establishment spent decades building firewalls after that. Superdelegates. Donor networks. Friendly party chairs. But most of those walls have worn awfully thin, and the June primaries in New York showed how little the old guard can do once left-wing primary voters make up their minds.

Which leaves Carville doing what Carville does. Talking loudly into a podcast microphone and hoping somebody with real power is listening.

Maybe Warren stays in the Senate and AOC runs for the big job. Maybe the schism Carville keeps begging for finally happens. Or maybe the whole fight fizzles and the party lines up behind whoever wins, the way Democrats usually do when the alternative means losing.

Carville wants his party to go fetch fresh water somewhere between the coasts. He still hasn’t explained what happens when the primary voters in New York and Massachusetts keep drinking from the same well.

Sources: Mediaite, “James Carville Lays Into Elizabeth Warren,” Zachary Leeman; Office of US Senator Elizabeth Warren, opening remarks transcript, Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy hearing, May 22, 2024; Fox News, “Carville declares he ‘can’t be in the same party’ as Mamdani-backed candidates, calls for formal schism,” Alexander Hall, June 26, 2026; Fox News, “Carville disavows Mamdani-backed candidate, tells her to start her own party”; Mediaite, “‘I’m Done, I’m Not in That F**ing Political Party’: James Carville Freaks Out After Progressives Win Big in Democratic Primaries”; Fox News, “James Carville slams wokeness pushed by Democrats as a ‘giant, stupid argument,’ blames ‘preachy females,’” Gabriel Hays, March 23, 2024; The National Desk, “AOC mocks Democratic strategist over claim ‘preachy’ women dominate party”; Voz, “Concerns are growing among Democratic analysts that the rise of radicals could cost the Democratic Party the midterms”*