We live in strange times.

You may have noticed: Democrats are suddenly slobbering all over Mitt Romney. You know, the guy they falsely accused of not paying taxes when he ran against Barack Obama for president in 2012 and the man they mercilessly ridiculed for having “binders full of women” and an irrational fear of Russia.

For their part, Republicans suddenly developed a crazy crush on James Carville, the wise-cracking Ragin‘ Cajun who helped elect Bill Clinton in 1992 by reminding the candidate and anyone who would listen that “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Romney became a folk hero to the left last week after he cast the lone Republican vote to convict Trump in the U. S. Senate and because he loathes the president almost as much as they do.

Carville - whom I thought had retired in domestic bliss with his firebrand Republican wife, Mary Matalin - delighted conservatives last week during a media blitz in which he delivered a brutal assessment of the Democratic Party.

Carville was on fire and - judging from my social media timeline - the GOP loved it.

“We're like talking about people voting from jail cells. We're talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people,” Carville snarled during an interview on the lefties’ favorite network, MSNBC. “Every day there are people out there struggling. We're trying to get votes.”

In another interview he mocked the utopian ideas of Sanders and Warren:

 “Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness. I’m not here to debate the idea. What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this s—.”

Finally, Carville lashed out at the urban arrogance that drips from New York City liberal journalists.

In a slice of delicious outrage the colorful Carville singled out a New York Times editorial page writer who mocked LSU for cancelling classes when that football powerhouse won the national championship last month.

Carville earned his undergraduate and law degrees from LSU and is on the Baton Rouge faculty.

Actual schools.

Carville’s blistering response (pardon his language. I told you he was colorful):

You know the left is foundering when a 75-year-old Clinton strategist has to emerge from the bayou to sound the out-of-touch alarm. Carville echoed what many of us have said since Hillary’s “deplorables” moment: Sneering at ordinary, decent people is not a winning strategy.

While Applebaum, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, may not know anyone who didn’t sashay through an Ivy League school, most Americans attended “lesser” institutions.

There are exactly eight Ivy League colleges in the US. There are more than 4,000 other colleges.

And neither Republicans nor Democrats like it when urban sophisticates insult their alma maters.