James Talarico tells Rachel Maddow how bigoted, anti-trans politics distract from GOP corruption

Texas state Rep. James Talarico rejected the argument Monday that Democrats must abandon transgender people to win competitive elections, offering one of his clearest responses yet to the Republican campaign against his support for the community.

“I don’t think we win by selling people out,” Talarico told Rachel Maddow during an appearance on MS NOW’s The Rachel Maddow Show. “And we’re refusing to do that in this campaign.”

Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, is running against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in a contest that could test whether a Democrat can combine unapologetic support for LGBTQ+ people with an appeal to voters exhausted by partisan warfare.

Maddow asked Talarico about critics who contend that his support for transgender people makes him unelectable in a state where Republicans have spent years turning the community into a political target. Talarico said politicians were exploiting complicated policy questions, including the participation of transgender athletes in sports, not to find workable answers but to generate fear and division.

“There are difficult issues, trying to figure out trans athletes in sports,” he said. “That’s an issue where we could actually come to a policy solution. But instead, politicians like Ken Paxton, they use those difficult issues to rile people up, to divide us, to distract us in order to win power for themselves.”

“It’s divide and conquer,” he added. “It’s the oldest strategy in the world. I think people are really tired of these culture war fights that are designed to tear us apart, designed to get us angry.”

Related: The rainbow Pride pin James Talarico encouraged me to wear

Republicans have made Talarico’s trans support a campaign issue

Talarico’s response came after months of attacks from Republicans seeking to portray his defense of transgender Texans as evidence that he is culturally out of step with the state.

As The Advocate has previously reported, Paxton used his Republican primary victory speech to mock Talarico for expressing support for transgender children, calling it “weird” and attacking his masculinity.

Other figures on the right have gone further, circulating altered images and falsely presenting Talarico as transgender. The attacks have frequently relied on the suggestion that supporting transgender people somehow makes Talarico less masculine, less Christian or less authentically Texan.

Talarico, a former public school teacher and seminarian, has tried to turn that fixation back on his opponents. He has argued that transgender Texans are not responsible for unaffordable healthcare, underfunded schools or the economic pressures facing families.

“We’re not going to win with the politics of division,” he said. “We can’t win that game. We have to change the game.”

Some party figures have argued that Democrats need to distance themselves from transgender athletes or stop emphasizing transgender rights altogether. LGBTQ+ advocates have countered that such a retreat would validate Republican scapegoating while offering no guarantee of electoral success.

Talarico’s answer placed him firmly in the latter camp. “This is a campaign of, by, and for all Texans,” he said.

Related: Stephen Miller made an anti-trans post about James Talarico. The DNC response hit its mark

A different theory of political persuasion

Talarico has built his campaign around the idea that Democrats do not need to imitate Republican rhetoric to reach conservative or religious voters.

Instead, he has used his Christian faith to argue for public education, economic fairness, immigrant rights and LGBTQ+ inclusion. His exchanges with Republicans over religion in public schools have repeatedly gone viral, helping elevate him from a state legislator to a national Democratic figure.

On Monday, he described his campaign as an alternative to a politics built on fear and resentment.

“The most radical thing you can do in an era of division is unite people,” he said.

Talarico said voters had been offered anger for so long that many were eager for a politics organized around “union,” friendship and love.

“We’ve seen what a politics of fear looks like,” he said. “We’ve seen what a politics of anger and rage looks like. But it’s been a while since politics has made us feel hopeful or excited about the future, or brings us together and creates community.”

Whether that argument can overcome Texas’ three-decade record of electing Republicans statewide remains an open question. No Democrat has won a statewide election there since 1994.

But Talarico is betting that Paxton’s long record of scandal, combined with voter frustration over the cost of living and the Republican Party’s relentless culture wars, has created an opening.

He spent much of the Maddow interview attacking Paxton’s public record, including the attorney general’s impeachment by the Texas House, the securities fraud case Paxton settled and questions surrounding his wealth and real estate holdings.

Talarico was notably reluctant to dwell on Paxton’s personal life, saying he would rather focus on the Republican’s conduct in office. Paxton’s wife, a state senator, has filed for divorce on “biblical” grounds, and the attorney general has been seen with another woman traveling around the globe on lavish vacations.

For transgender Texans, his answer Monday was also a promise that they will not be offered up as the price of appearing electable.