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DELUSIONS OF NORMALCY

Democratic elites are patting themselves on the back after state representative James Talarico (D.) defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D.) in the Texas Senate primary. The sassy black woman was “unelectable,” whereas Talarico is the new and improved Beto O’Rourke who will finally “turn Texas blue.” He’s normal, they insist, a tad suspiciously—just a typical 36-year-old confirmed bachelor with a master’s degree from Harvard and nothing to hide. He can relate to Trump voters.

Um, good luck with that. If Talarico is Democrats’ idea of a normal candidate who can transcend the party’s hard-earned reputation for clownish extremism, they are hopeless. First of all, just look at him. Talarico has the appearance, demeanor, and cloying charm of a sixth-grade class president giving an oral report for extra credit about picking up litter at the local park. This is Texas, for crying out loud. Football season starts in August. At some point, someone is going to throw a pigskin at him, and we’ll see how normal that plays out.

Even if he goes the Pete Buttigieg route and grows a relatable beard, it wouldn’t help. Talarico has a long history of expressing views most Americans would find insane, and invoking his Christian faith to assert the moral imperative of those views. Coastal liberals eat that shit up. Talarico will raise $100 million for the general election, but it seems unlikely that Texas voters will be receptive to being told they are bad Christians for opposing the following:

Prisons should be abolished because “prison is violence.”

White people spread the “virus of racism” wherever they go, and must take “dramatic actions to contain the spread.”

Abortion clinics belong in federal courthouses and national parks because God loves abortion.

Male athletes should participate in women’s sports because “some things are more important than perfectly fair competition.”

There are “six” biological sexes according to “modern science.”

It’s totally normal and not weird at all to refer to women as “our neighbors with uteruses,” and Latinos as the “Latinx community.”

This is just a sample of the crazy things Talarico said during the “peak woke” period of 2020-2021 after the death of George Floyd. Kamala Harris faced the same problem in 2024, and Democrats still haven’t come up with a better excuse than “it was a long time ago” and “everyone else was doing it.” Not everyone was doing it! Even most Democrats didn’t brag about being the first to “add pronouns” to their official business cards in 2021. Talarico went all in. Even the most benign explanation—he got caught up in the excitement of dismantling white supremacy and said all those things to impress the popular liberals—reflects poorly on his judgment and character to a degree that should be disqualifying.

Conclusion: The word “normal” doesn’t mean what Democrats think it means.

Addendum: It’s possible that Talarico has had a genuine change of heart. If he truly believed his own nonsense about the racism virus, he would have dropped out the minute Crockett entered the race. Black women are the “backbone” of the Democratic Party, representation matters, and so on. Nevertheless, he persisted, and now another black woman must endure the literal violence of unemployment, and millions of little black girls across this great country will grow up lacking the confidence to follow their dreams because a white man will always stand in their way.

What they’re saying: “A lot of black women who work in the Democratic Party, vote for Democrats, organize for Democrats, have always had a sense of this,” Tayhlor Coleman, a Texas-based political strategist and social media influencer, told Politico after the primary. “It’s a lot more apparent now: A lot of people in the Democratic Party want our labor, they do not want our leadership.”

What they’re also saying: “I hope the biggest lesson people take away from the Talarico-Crockett race is that the tactic of just baselessly accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a bigot over and over and over in hopes you’ll cow everyone into submission is in its death throes,” wrote Armand Domalewski, a pro-Harris Democratic influencer. He was referring to Crockett and the “online army of cry bullies” that accused Talarico of diminishing black excellence.

You hate to see it—like watching your parents fight in a flaming dumpster.

Good luck to all!