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Last week, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and xenophobic racist Stephen Miller attacked Democratic Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico with the level of class and dignity typical of MAGA.
Responding to a boilerplate Talarico campaign announcement posted by the Democrats’ account on X, Miller responded, “The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.” Miller later doubled down on Fox News, claiming that Talarico was “transitioning into a female.”
Miller is lying; Talarico is cis, not trans. It’s also grotesquely bigoted; Miller is attempting to smear Talarico by suggesting that being trans should be disqualifying from participating in public life.
But this ugly attack is very much in line with the GOP strategy in Texas which has centered obsessively, and repulsively, on attempting to feminize and misgender Talarico. Rather than talk about issues, records, or even personalities, Republicans have simply started bellowing “WE ARE MEN! THEY NOT MEN! MEN GOOD! NOT MEN BAD!” over and over again in a toxic masculine fugue of bile and sweat.
It’s a repulsive spectacle. But it’s also a clarifying one. Republicans could not make it much clearer that their party is entirely given over to bigotry, rage, and bullying. There are no issues to compromise on, no middle ground to occupy. The only question is whether women, queer people, non-white people, and indeed Democrats as a whole are human beings with a stake in democracy, or if non-Republicans are all simply vermin to be subjugated.
Faced with that stark choice, the Talarico campaign, and Democrats in general, have responded by standing firm rather than folding. That’s a welcome change from early in Trump’s term — and it’s also a hopeful sign that Democrats are starting belatedly to realize that the only way forward is fighting back.
Everything is gender
Last week, Republicans held their run-off primary election. Incumbent John Cornyn lost; the GOP’s candidate is instead the disgustingly corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is so obviously unfit his own party tried to impeach him.
Talarico, a member of the Texas House, is, by contrast, a talented communicator who has made his progressive Christian faith a center of his campaign.
Texas is very red; Democrats have not won a statewide office there since 1994, more than 30 years ago. But Paxton is a weak candidate in a building blue wave year, and Talarico hasn’t trailed Paxton in a poll since March. A poll conducted after Paxton clinched the primary found Talarico up by three points. Analyst G. Elliott Morris has made an extensive case that the election at this point is a toss-up — emphasizing, in particular, that Trump’s approval is a brutal -20 in the state.
Paxton and the entire GOP have responded to this tough electoral situation by turning hard right and spiraling into semi-incomprehensible smears and conspiracy theories centered on the fantasy that Talarico is not a man or is doing manhood wrong.
The big Republicans scandal moment of the campaign so far came a couple weeks ago when Talarico ordered a potato, egg, and cheese taco.
An innocuous moment, you say? Well, yes. But every Republican with access to a keyboard rushed over to X to declaim that ordering an egg taco meant that Talarico was a vegetarian (he is not) and/or a vegan (vegans don’t eat eggs!).
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that Talarico “was not beating the vegetarian allegations” (why are they allegations?!). Donald Trump