James Talarico has the Republican Party running scared.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rarely mentions Gina Hinojosa, his Democratic rival, but he is going after U.S. Senate candidate Talarico with guns blazing.
The assault on Talarico isn’t just coming from Texas, either. President Donald Trump has been using his Truth Social soapbox to call out the Texas politician as a radically woke vegan who believes in six genders. According to Trump, the GOP allowed Talarico to win the Democratic primary election so they could bury him with embarrassing revelations.
Brooks Potteiger (Photo via X)
But the most extreme assault on Talarico’s character to date came from Brooks Potteiger, a Christian nationalist pastor who has served as a spiritual mentor to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Media attention focused on Potteiger’s stated desire that God would kill Talarico. Hegseth’s pastor then appealed to the “imprecatory Psalms” in the Bible that call on God to slay the wicked.
Realizing the need for some plausible deniability, Potteiger pivoted to Saint Paul’s concept of being “crucified with Christ.” He just wanted God to bring Talarico to die spiritually in the same way Saul of Tarsus had to die so he could be reborn as the Apostle Paul.
But if you really want to know what Potteiger was driving at, focus on what the pastor said just prior to his demand that God kill Talarico:
These are the orcs at the gate. You are not called to love the barbarian horde that is planning to break into your city and, you know, pillage, plunder, rape and mutilate you and your people. You don’t love that horde. That is your enemy and you pray … this is where you have imprecatory Psalms. This is where you pray … the Psalmist is not shy … “God destroy them. Make them as dung on the ground.”
In Potteiger’s mind, James Talarico is an orc. The reference, of course, is to the grotesque monsters in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Orcs may be corrupted elves, or they may be murderous automatons created by the evil lord Sauron for the sole purpose of raping, pillaging and plundering.
We are not called to love orcs like Talarico, Hegseth’s pastor reasons, because they are the enemy.
We are not called to love orcs like Talarico, Hegseth’s pastor reasons, because they are the enemy.
Bad theology and bad fruit
Christians on the radical right always have had trouble with the core Christian teaching that we must love and forgive our enemies. How can we love and forgive our enemies, they ask, when God is itching to toss them into a literal lake of fire?
The preachers who have taken control of the Texas Republican Party believe God takes sides in the culture war. Because God is on our side, they say. Therefore, God must hate our opponents even more than we do. For this new breed of preacher, empathy is a sin. We must not love those whom God despises.
Progressive Christians like Talarico also believe God takes sides. But God isn’t on our side or on the side of our opponents; God sides with the poor, the outcast, the oppressed, the refugee, the immigrant, the sick, the perplexed. God cares about politics, Talarico says, because God is passionately concerned about the victims of bad public policy.
James Talarico speaks at a campaign rally (Photo provided by Talarico for Senate campaign)
For two generations now, Texas Republicans have controlled every statewide elected office by exercising a phenomenal degree of message control. Texas Republicans win by repeating a litany of mutually reinforcing mantras that, for most Texas voters, have the ring of common sense.
An inerrant Bible lies at the heart of Texas Republican religion. God’s word spells out simple, unambiguous truth. This means our political commitments should be Bible-based. If we abandon our traditional commitment to biblical principle, the argument goes, we are left with a cultural relativism where anything goes. Democrats like Talarico are down with murdering babies because they have strayed from the timeless truth revealed in the Bible.
The Bible and free markets
Not all Texas Republicans are Christian nationalists or even Christians.
Javaid Anwar, the Midland oil magnate who has contributed $1.6 million to Abbott’s reelection fund, is a practicing Muslim born in Pakistan.
Jeff Yass, who recently donated $6 million to Abbott, is Jewish.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, another big-money donor, is a Catholic who received a private audience with Pope Francis. Elon Musk, who directs most of his political giving to judicial campaigns, presents himself as a “cultural Christian.”
For Texas Republicans, free markets are just as inerrant as the Bible.
For Texas Republicans, free markets are just as inerrant as the Bible. Any form of government aid to the poor and unfortunate, or legislation designed to regulate private business, is denounced as “socialism,” which is just a polite word for communism. And, as everybody knows, communism and atheism walk hand-in-hand.
This commitment to the inerrancy of free markets explains why Texas Republicans have refused to accept an expansion of the Medicaid system even though the expense would have been born by the federal government. It was a matter of religious principle.
The gospel emanating from the most prestigious evangelical pulpits of Texas is a mix of theological and free market fundamentalism. Anyone who disagrees is either a RINO (Republican In Name Only), a liberal wacko or a fake Christian.
Texas Democrats, by contrast, lack a common religious language. Most Latinos active in Texas Democratic politics were raised Catholic, most Black Texas Democrats are evangelical Protestants, and most white Texas Democrats either have no religion or believe religion and politics don’t mix.
Meet Jim Rigby
Jim Rigby (Photo via Grabien)
With congregants on both sides of the culture war, Mainline Protestant pastors and Catholic priests learn to steer clear of politics. But there are a few blessed exceptions, one of whom is Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin.
Rigby preaches his politics and takes his religion to the steps of the Texas Legislature. He stands up for victims of spousal abuse, asylum seekers, the LGBTQ community, racial and religious and minorities, and women affected by punitive abortion laws. Rigby sides with these people because he believes God does.
James Talarico grew up listening to Jim Rigby preach this radically inclusive gospel. So far as he knew, this was Christianity. On the campaign trail, Talarico credits his grandfather, a Baptist preacher, for teaching him that the religion of Jesus is simple and demanding: Love God and love your neighbor. Simple as that.
After graduating from the University of Texas, Talarico taught sixth grade students at Rhodes Middle School on the poor side of San Antonio. Many of the kids he worked with were recent immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. Some were legal residents, others undocumented, but they all possessed a passionate love for America, a deep-seated work ethic and a determination to make the most of their limited opportunities.
Talarico believed loving God meant loving God’s children. All of them. This conviction sent him to the Texas Legislature and, ultimately, to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. With a single year remaining in his master of divinity program, he put his education on pause so he could run for the U.S. Senate.
Fight between top and bottom
Although Talarico flipped a relatively safe Republican seat in the Texas Legislature, hardly anyone took his U.S. Senate run seriously. After all, no Texas Democrat has won a statewide office since Ann Richards was elected governor in 1990.
Democrats typically do well in large metropolitan areas like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, often winning by 10 or 15 points. Republicans triumph by winning large margins in mid-sized cities, small towns and rural areas.
At campaign events, Talarico relates every issue to his love-God-and-your-neighbor message. He keeps things simple. He told Joe Rogan the real fight in American life isn’t between the left and the right, but between the top and the bottom.
People like Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg have learned that extreme opinions and nasty quips garner clicks. We are so busy battling with our ideological opposites, Talarico says, that we don’t notice the superrich are picking our pockets.
If we are looking for practical ways to love our brothers and sisters, regardless of race, religion or income, Talarico believes, we can’t avoid the political arena. Every piece of legislation helps some people and hurts others. If we allow the wealthiest Americans to buy up all the politicians, we know who will benefit and who will be damaged.
If we allow the wealthiest Americans to buy up all the politicians, we know who will benefit and who will be damaged.
When Stephen Colbert booked Talarico on The Late Show, the Trump administration feared another Joe Rogan moment. Appealing to an antiquated equal time rule, FCC Chairman Brendon Carr charged Colbert’s interview with the rising Texas Democrat was “motivated by partisan purpose.”
Colbert complied with this order but transferred the Talarico interview to his YouTube channel. When the segment generated 10 million views (and millions in donations) it was clear Trump had overplayed his hand.
Can Talarico become the first Texas Democrat in almost 40 years to win a statewide election? It’s an uphill battle, and he knows it. He will have to win over the Black voters who were energized by Jasmine Crockett’s primary campaign. He will have to amplify his outreach to Latino voters. And he may have to persuade at least 5% of MAGA voters in the small towns and rural regions of Texas to vote for an orc … I mean, a Democrat.
Or maybe not. If Trump’s favorability numbers continue their downward trajectory, a significant slice of disaffected Republicans may just stay home on Election Day. If, as seems likely, the comically corrupt Ken Paxton wins the Republican primary runoff, a small percentage of disgruntled John Cornyn supporters may refuse to cast a vote for either candidate. In a typical election, this would be unthinkable, but this isn’t a typical year.
Religion will be on the ballot this year, especially if Paxton is the Republican standard bearer. Voters may be asked to choose between Christian nationalism and the Social Gospel. If the Republicans were as confident of victory as they claim to be, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince us Talarico is an orc.
Alan Bean leads the nonprofit Friends of Justice and lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attends Broadway Baptist Church.
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Fact checking three things James Talarico said | Opinion by Brent Barry