JONATHAN TURLEY: James Carville's latest tirade reveals the left's all-consuming politics of rage

James Carville has built a whole second career on being angry on television, so it takes something specific to stand out from the usual noise. Calling Hakeem Jeffries's meeting with Jared Kushner an act of consorting with "felons and traitors" clears that bar. This wasn't a policy disagreement dressed up in spicy language. It was a Democratic strategist accusing a sitting member of his own party's leadership of treason for doing the basic, boring work of legislating, because the meeting happened to involve someone with the last name Kushner.

Turley's point lands because it's not really about Carville the man, it's about what he represents. There's a wing of the left that has stopped treating politics as a means of getting things done and started treating it as a loyalty test administered hourly. Talk to the other side, even about routine business, and you're not a lawmaker anymore. You're a collaborator. That's not a fringe podcast take anymore, either. It's a mood that's crept into cable panels, into primary challenges, into the way "bipartisan" has become an insult in some corners.

The irony is that Jeffries meeting with Kushner is exactly the kind of thing people say they want more of when they complain about gridlock. You can't have it both ways: demand cooperation in the abstract and then torch anyone who actually attempts it. Carville's outburst isn't a gaffe. It's a preview of what happens to any Democrat who tries to govern rather than perform, and that should worry people well beyond conservative circles.