And out come the NeverTrumpers to support their new favorite person, who apparently disagrees with everything they’ve professed to believe in: Texas state Rep. James Talarico.
Talarico is the Democratic nominee for Senate in the Lone Star State. He’s built a bit of a reputation as a national figure of late by getting favorable play in the kind of softball interviews Democrats of his ilk usually get. Think of him asBeto O’Rourke2.0. The big upgrade, this time, is his dubious but much-flogged Christian background.
Talarico, as you may have heard, is a “Presbyterian seminarian,” a phrase that gets as much play in profiles of the candidate as “devout Catholic” used to get in Joe Biden’s.
It’s enough to make one ask what’s being taught in Presbyterian seminary these days, but one digresses; suffice it to say, he is prepossessed of a certain kind of passive-aggressive political Christianity which ignores all of the obvious biblical prohibitions against social issues like abortion, homosexuality, and gender issues, brushing those off with reflexive, unthoughtful “ackshully, Jesus came for the poor …”-style rhetoric.
One also understands why Talarico’s performative faith might be a plus this time around: There’s still a decent chance that he’s running against Attorney General Ken Paxton, who — while he may be more than amenable to conservative Christian priorities legislatively — has a reputation (deserved or undeserved) as a man who plays a little too loose with his public andprivate morals.
The GOP race, since no candidate reached 50 percent in this month’s primary, will go to a runoff on May 26. Paxton is upagainst incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
At a retail politics level, one can at least appreciate Talarico’s dim Christianity, while not cosigning any of his prattling as a serious version of faith in action. But leave it toDavid Frenchover atThe New York Timesto write a po-faced paean to Mr. Talarico, published Sunday, titled “James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray.” I’ll allow you a second to stop laughing.
There is, I suspect, a lot of knowing ignorance in the attempt to make James “God is Nonbinary” Talarico an appealing option to voters of faith, but some of it does seem like genuine affinity from one of the Times’ token quasi-conservative Christians.
In particular, far from being disqualifying in French’s eyes, Talarico’s dubious heterodox passive-aggressive progressive faith is actually a bonus, even if he claims not to necessarily agree with him:
For example, in an interview with my colleague Ezra Klein, Talarico criticized the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics. “It’s remarkable to me,” Talarico said, “that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about.”
Source: VidNews » Feed
