Donald Trump · Republicans · Democrats · Wired
Talarico did not claim to be a vegan himself, has since pushed back on that he is one
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The fixation on the need to eat meat and max out testosterone is of a piece with male-dominated podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience as well as toxic social media spaces where men denigrate supposedly weaker males as “soy boys.” But many of these notions have found purchase at the highest levels of the Trump…
Key facts
- On Tuesday, with Donald Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the MAGA faithful, scandal-ridden Texas attorney general Ken Paxton defeated incumbent US senator John Cornyn in a runoff primary
- The latter claim apparently stems from comments he made while running for reelection to the Texas House of Representatives in 2022
- He then quickly set about painting his general-election opponent, Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico, as insufficiently masculine
- That Republicans are now weaponizing these concepts against Talarico suggests that the masculinist dogma has penetrated the national consciousness
Summary
On Tuesday, with Donald Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the MAGA faithful, scandal-ridden Texas attorney general Ken Paxton defeated incumbent US senator John Cornyn in a runoff primary to claim the Republican nomination for that seat. He then quickly set about painting his general-election opponent, Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico, as insufficiently masculine. “My opponent is the most extreme radical that Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton said in his victory speech. He goes by a few names that you may all have heard of. The spattering of derogatory nicknames was a not entirely successful Trumpian flourish. (The Talarico campaign, already a fundraising juggernaut, started selling “ I’m a Talafreako ” T-shirts right away). Paxton’s first ad of the general election continued in that bro-coded vein, casting Talarico as both out of step with Texan values and lacking in testosterone: the spot ends by declaring the Democrat “too low-T for Texas.