James Talarico is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas. His opponent is Ken Paxton, the attorney general of the state. For some reason, it is very important to Republicans that Talarico be gay or transgender. I’m not sure why this is so. We are in a bizarre psychological realm here.
On Tuesday, a member of JD Vance’s crowd called out, “I love you!” He answered, “I love you too, sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”
The crowd ate it up, of course.
Is Talarico gay? This is a matter of indifference to me. But why would the vice president of the United States say such a thing?
The first word in his Twitter bio is, of course, “Christian.”
The first words in the Twitter bio of Kari Lake are, of course, “Follower of Christ.” Lake was the Republican nominee for governor and then for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Today, she is the senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (meaning Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, etc.).
James Talarico was off the campaign trail for nine days with the flu. This gave rise to conspiracy theories on the right. This is what Kari Lake posted:
Bear in mind: Lake is not some random Internet kook. There are a billion of them. She is a top Arizona politician and holds an important position in the federal government.
I think of Arizona Republicans past: Barry Goldwater, John McCain, Jon Kyl. I admired them tremendously. I think of the people I have known who have been leaders of our global media: Jim Buckley, Jeff Gedmin, Tom Kent, Jamie Fly.
Kari Lake?
The Republican Party and “conservative movement” are in a dark, dark place.
***
As regular readers are no doubt tired of hearing me say—I am tired of saying it—two of my main prayers for the American Right are these: that they recover a proper sense of manliness and that they recover a proper sense of patriotism.
Manliness is not a strutting brutishness; patriotism is not a braying jingoism.
Let me paste two sentences from an article in The Atlantic published last Sunday. The article is about the scheduled livestream of an execution—that of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer:
Are we so weak, so insecure, that we must convince the world that we are still powerful by making a public spectacle of an execution? Or maybe Secretary Hegseth and President Trump intend this as a spectacle for the American people: a show of just how much testosterone the two men have surging through their veins.
I am of two minds about public executions—but maybe we can leave that subject for another day. The above words were written by William H. McRaven, the retired admiral who is best known for the operation that killed bin Laden.
He is no cupcake, McRaven.
In my observation, genuinely manly men such as McRaven reserve their greatest contempt for macho, faux-manly bullsh**. I knew a fair number of these men when I was growing up. They had fought in World War II. They did not strut or bray—ever.
***
I am going to unload. Perhaps I am unwise to do so, but I’ve “had it up to here.”
On Monday, Trump was rallying in Ohio in behalf of Jon Husted, the Republican senator. Said Trump of the candidate:
I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched up and down, and I looked at his a** …
Look, I don’t care. It was kind of funny, actually. But from the Trump Right—the nat-pop, postliberal Right—conservatives like me have heard nothing but “Fag! Fag! Fag!” for ten years.
And who is the masculine ideal of this Right? A man who dyes his hair, cakes on makeup, prances around to “Y.M.C.A.,” hails other men’s backsides …
Day after day on social media, people with Greco-Roman nudes as their avatars heap sexual abuse on me, and all the other conservatives of a pre-Trump stripe.
Something weird is going on here. If someone has an explanation—I’m all ears.
Yesterday, I was writing about the wanton slaughter of Ukrainians by Putin’s military, now with the blatant help of the United States. A reader replied,
Five years of enduring infinite amounts of faggotry from people with Ukrainian flags in their bios have made me numb to the concept of caring about these people.
Another “follower of Christ,” no doubt. I’ve had it up to here—have I said this recently?—with people who hang a cross around their neck, put an American flag on their lapel, and conduct themselves as nastily as possible.
Really.
I ain’t so great. But I know that it’s wrong to invade and murder innocent people.
***
Would you like to move on to sports, music, language, and the other topics I routinely cover? Or should I leave this column short and sweet (more like short and bitter)? I think I’ll opt for the latter. And I promise you a nice column or two in the near future.
Thank you so much.
Not sure the Republican Party that you hope resurrects itself (to the one you remember) even exists any more. Trump took it over effortlessly in 2016. All he had to say on the debate stage was that he will support the nominee as long as it is him.
Loved your column on Charles Krauthammer. In one of his columns he compared Trump to an 8 year old - which I thought and still think was a generous addition of 6 years.
To the question would Krauthammer believe Trump envies Xi? I believe that would be an emphatic yes - bloated and bursting with envy.
Ouch ... I know that stating the facts about Maga is not the gospel, but there is a part of me that feels if we say nothing the rocks will cry out and we will be liable for the mess.