A traveling bag made from carpet material, popular in the 1800s, or used metaphorically to describe someone's political interests in a place where they're not from.
Literally a bag made from carpet fabric, which was cheap and durable for travel. The term gained political meaning during Reconstruction after the Civil War when Northern opportunists traveled South carrying such bags.
After the Civil War, Northern politicians literally arrived in the South with carpetbags, and the symbol became so notorious that it's still used 160 years later to describe political outsiders!
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