James Talarico’s campaign could do lasting damage to the GOP

All politics are identity politics. Republicans have long mocked this notion, treating the very concept of “identity politics” as a left-wing fixation. In reality, the GOP’s success is entirely due to the cheapest form of identity politics: For decades, but especially now, they have worked to distract voters from the party’s ruinous policies with appeals to their identity as white, provincial and, most importantly, Christian. This campaign has been enormously successful. White evangelicals have been the backbone of the GOP for decades not because they love tax cuts for the rich and environmental degradation, but because they have been told, repeatedly, that Democrats are demonic and there is no such thing as a liberal Christian. 

This is why there’s a growing panic in the Republican ranks over the campaign of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas, and it’s not just fear that he could beat Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general. Win or lose, Talarico — a seminary student-turned-politician — embodies an existential threat to the right’s long-standing myth that to be Christian must necessarily mean voting Republican. 

“As a young evangelical we were taught repeatedly and clearly: It is not possible to be a Christian and a Democrat,” Brad Onishi, a research associate at the University of California, Berkeley and co-host of the “Straight White American Jesus” podcast, told me. “But candidates like Talarico are changing that. His theological acumen and keen ability to use the language of the New Testament to disarm bad-faith religious attacks is showing a new way forward.”

Most white evangelicals believe “you cannot ever vote for a Democrat because they hate you,” explained April Ajoy, a former Christian nationalist turned liberal Christian, on her YouTube channel Wednesday. Part of her deconstruction journey, she said, meant rejecting the belief that “Christians cannot vote Democrat.”

As Ajoy pointed out, if one looks past the tribalist loyalties, Democrats should be a better fit for people who claim allegiance to Jesus Christ, who called on followers to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. But tribalist identity politics are what really matters. White evangelical leaders keep their flocks voting for Republicans by implying that they are somehow abandoning the identity of “Christian” if they choose to vote for Democrats. The fact that many Democratic politicians are also Christian doesn’t register because they usually don’t foreground their religious identity in the same way as Republicans, who wave Bibles and pray loudly. 

Talarico, though, has centered his Christian identity in his campaign. It’s not just that he regularly quotes scripture or speaks openly of his faith. His biography reads far more like that of a right-wing evangelical than the liberal Democrat he is. He studied theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is the grandson of a Baptist preacher. He gives off Boy Scout vibes with his earnest tones and short haircut. He even grew up in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin that has shifted left in recent years, but that used to be infamous for its right-wing politics. For white evangelicals experiencing doubts about MAGA politics, Talarico is a role model for how to be a liberal without giving up their faith, or even a conservative aesthetic.

Many Christian right leaders understand that, even if Talarico can’t pull off a miracle win in Texas, his campaign and fame is a long-term threat to their cause. The reaction from white evangelical influencers to him isn’t just about disagreeing with him politically. They are actively trying to discredit his identity as a Christian. 

“They are people who are walking into churches and walking into the lives of Christians with the demonic specific intent to deceive Christians and advance evil and destroy their faith,” said Josh Howerton, a popular podcaster who serves as senior pastor of the Dallas-based Lakepointe Church. He went on to mock Talarico’s “reverend vibe,” calling him a “false teacher.”

In April, Trump-loving evangelical podcaster Eric Metaxas insisted that Talarico’s faith is a left-wing hoax. “They don’t they don’t openly say we worship Satan and we hate your savior,” he said. “No, they pretend to be more Christian.”

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“[Talarico] is not a Christian man,” his guest Megan Basham, a self-declared “unabashed church lady,” agreed. She noted that “Satan” can say Christian-sounding things, but that “doesn’t make him Christian.”

But the headline of an episode of evangelical podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey’s show was perhaps the most inflammatory: “James Talarico is More Demonic Than You Think.” Stuckey, who has attacked empathy as “toxic,” warned viewers and listeners that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Satan looks good. He sounds good.” Talarico, she said, is “evil disguised as goodness.”

If this were just about the outcome of a single Senate race — one in which Talarico is still an underdog, despite strong poll numbers — there would be no need for this extreme rhetoric equating him to Satan, calling him demonic and denying that he’s a real Christian. The GOP’s panicked reaction is about much more than one election. As Howerton declared, there are only “two types” of Christians, “Christian conservatives and conservative Christians.” They do not want their followers peeking behind door number three.

The religious right has good reason to worry that some of their followers could be tempted by Talarico’s message that liberal Christians are a real thing. Already, churches are losing power because their fidelity to the GOP over Christ’s message of love and compassion. A recent study from the Billy Graham Center Research Institute at the evangelical Wheaton College shows that nearly half of Gen Z respondents agreed with the statement “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.” 

Many people have left religion altogether rather than try to deal with the dissonance between Trump’s hateful message and the Christian call to love. Others have struggled, not wanting to abandon their faith or community over political disagreements. As Ajoy and Onishi explained, they instead squelch their doubts and fall in line. This is why Talarico is such a potent threat, far beyond November. Even if he loses his election, he’s made it much harder for the right to convince their followers that being a Christian means voting Republican. 

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