All of a sudden, a baby-faced politician with the mannerisms of Barack Obama started showing up on my YouTube homepage.
I’d open the app to start my bedtime yoga nidra routine only to find myself entranced by brief clips of this man in a legislative setting making progressive arguments from a Christian perspective. I liked what he had to say, and his magnetism was undeniable, but I didn’t bother to learn more about him, because I figured he’d be a passing fascination of the algorithm, and that soon enough, the Great Brain That Controls What I See and Do Not See would go back to feeding me videos of, say, a freshly-bearded Pete Buttigieg explaining the pitfalls of tariffs to Andrew Schulz, or a likewise freshly-bearded Ezra Klein looking me directly in the eyes, like a cool high school government teacher, and extolling the politics of abundance.
But I guess the algorithm knew me better than I knew myself, a scary but likely thought, because it kept shoving more videos of this curious man into my feed, and I kept eating them up like the well-trained media consumer I am. There he was, reprimanding a fidgety legislator in a firm-yet-respectful way for admitting that classic works of literature like Romeo and Juliet and The Catcher in the Rye might meet the criteria to be banned from Texas public schools.
There he was, giving a sermon about how Jesus wouldn’t approve of many of the policies that the Christian right vehemently support. There he was, lambasting a representative (who kind of looked like Luke Wilson) for not being able to produce evidence for the wild claim that students were dressing up as cats and relieving themselves in school-provided litterboxes. I was surprised as anyone to find myself (mostly) agreeing with a pastor from Texas; I was enrapt by his clear-eyed, level-headed cool, the way he laid out arguments in such a well-reasoned and earnest manner that rebukes felt almost futile. Still, I didn’t bother to even look up his name, opting instead to thumb over to my favorite yoga nidra video, strap on my eyemask, and go to sleep.
Near the end of July, though, it became clear I could no longer ignore this man. Why? Because he’d officially entered the medium-rare heart of the manosphere by appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience. His name, if you haven’t figured it out by now, is James Talarico, and he’s a 36-year-old Democrat, pastor, and former middle school teacher who represents the 50th District, which includes part of Austin, in the Texas House of Representatives.
Rogan, who lives in Austin, invited Talarico on his show because, as he put it, “I found out about you from my friend, Brian Simpson.” The sprawling two-and-a-half-hour conversation that followed served as an opportunity for Talarico to introduce himself to the nation in a long-form setting for the first time. He came across as confident, humble, and intelligent, if a bit pollyanna (self-admittedly so), and near the end, Rogan said the words that caused the whole endeavor to go slightly viral: “you need to run for president.”
It’s still odd to me that Rogan, who I know from my youth as the cockroach-munching host of Fear Factor and from my college days as a stand-up comic who told jokes about dating bimbos, has amassed such cultural clout. I frequently listened to his podcast a decade ago, back when MMA fighters made up, like, half of his guest pool, and I never could’ve predicted that he’d go on to amass such immense societal sway.
He has 20 million followers on YouTube, and close to a million on Spotify. His influence shouldn’t surprise me, of course, considering he was perhaps the most pivotal podcast personality of the 2024 election, with his interviews of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and likewise Kamala Harris’s decision not to sit down with him, often cited as reasons why Trump was able to seduce so many young male voters and, ultimately, win another term in the White House.
Point being, it’s a big deal to appear on Rogan’s podcast, and it’s an even bigger deal to do well, which I think Talarico did, conservative Christian critiques of his appearance notwithstanding.
As an aside, there are many completely warranted criticisms of Rogan as a podcast host, including his non-critical interviewing style and his tendency to give a cushy platform to people with a propensity to spew misinformation, including famed Sandy Hook-denier Alex Jones. Yet the medium Rogan employs is vital, necessary, and refreshingly anachronistic: in an era when so many people form their worldviews through an endless scroll of 15-second Tik-Tok clips, Rogan sits down with people and has actual in-person, extended conversations that are, to my knowledge, mostly unedited*.
This, in theory, gives the listener a more accurate and three-dimensional representation of the person being interviewed. We can argue all day about the merits of platforming bad faith actors, conspiracy theorists, and, in one instance, a self-proclaimed reformed murderer who ended up killing someone a month after appearing on the show. Even so, I think there’s real value in sticking a microphone in someone’s face and letting them yammer on for a couple of hours. By the end of the thing, we feel like we actually know them a little better, though of course it’s hard to truly know anyone, as evidenced by the aforementioned “reformed” murderer who wasted no time chopping someone into small pieces after stepping away from the mic.
Rogan isn’t the only podcaster to employ this long-form style, of course, and there are perhaps less-controversial and, frankly, better alternatives out there (see: The Tim Ferriss Show), but he is kind of an OG in this space, considering he started his podcast back in 2009, when the medium was only five years old. When his approach goes wrong, you have someone like Robert Malone spreading COVID misinformation to millions of listeners. When it goes right, you get a guy like Talarico disseminating his refreshing blend of faith and politics to perhaps a wider audience than he’d normally be able to access. These are two sides of the same oft-frustrating Rogan coin.
So, what about Talarico made Rogan, who infamously endorsed Trump last year, tell him, in his typical off-the-cuff style, that he should run for president? It was, among other things, Talarico’s disarming good-heartedness, the way he appears to be motivated by a sense of integrity (remember integrity?) and a set of internal principles that not only shape the type of legislation he chooses to author and endorse (like, for instance, a bill that allowed incarcerated minors to receive high school diplomas), but also the way he’s willing to cross party lines if he feels like it’s the right thing to do (see: a bill that allowed Texas homeschool students to participate in public school sports).
Rogan nudged Talarico to enter the presidential field because, as Rogan put it, “we need someone who’s a good person.” That’s undeniably a huge part of Talarico’s appeal, especially set against the negative image most of us have in our heads of the stereotypical politician: a cunning, shady, manipulative lagoon creature that’ll say and do anything to maintain the upperhand, a prototype that has been pushed to its logical extreme by the current inhabitant of the White House.
Talarico’s seemingly pure motives would be of little consequence, politically speaking, if he didn’t possess strong oratory skills, a knack for constructing logical arguments, and the courage to speak truth to power, yet he has all three of these characteristics in spades. His willingness to spar with obscenely powerful billionaires, specifically West Texas oil barons/megachurch pastors Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn, has led to Bernie Sanders comparisons, and his strong moral center makes him a rare kind of politician for our times, which are increasingly defined by the grotesque amounts of money being orgastically pumped into both parties, and a president who is so unabashedly corrupt that he saw no issue with accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar, and so irredeemably callous that he’s once again separating asylum-seeking immigrants from their young children.
In this sense, Talarico stands not only as Trump’s antithesis in virtually every way, but also as a man apart from the bloated Democratic behemoth in D.C., which a wide swath of Americans, liberals included, feel so disillusioned with. It’s tempting, in light of the overwhelming cold-heartedness and grift, to view Talarico as a savior-type figure: for the Democratic Party, sure, but also for America as a whole, which is being crushed under the weight of a burgeoning oligarchy that continues to fatten the rich while hamstringing the working class.
It would be wholly misguided, of course, to anoint Talarico the savior of anything. He said as much during his interview with Rogan, speaking critically of how both parties have embraced certain politicians as Christ-like figures: Trump on the right, obviously, but also Sanders, to a lesser extent, on the left.
“This is one of the ways that [politics becomes a religion]: people put all of their faith into a politician,” he told Rogan. “I like Bernie a whole lot, but some people treat him like he’s a Messianic figure… he’s still a flawed human being, just like we all are. The change is going to come from your listeners, not from me.”
Curiously enough, Talarico’s discomfort with being hailed as the Next Great Hope only increases his appeal as a candidate, given the fact that we’re living through an era in which the Republican Party has devolved into a de facto cult in which every member must fall in lockstep or be cast into the wilderness (just ask Mike Pence, Thom Tillis, or any other conservative who’s attempted to defy Trump). The way the Right has platformed the idea that Trump is on a mission from God, a narrative that gained even more traction after the assassination attempt last year, is a disturbing and dangerous development. To see Talarico, who appears to be an actual man of God, saying the public shouldn’t view him, or anyone else, as a saint, is a breath of fresh air into our collectively inflamed lungs. It’s revealing that Talarico’s kindness, empathy, and humility seem so radical to us; it’s a reminder of just how far we’ve fallen off the tracks.
To be clear, Talarico hasn’t shown any intention of running for president, though his decision to appear on Rogan seems to suggest a desire to insert his name into the national conversation. The extent of his political ambitions will likely be unveiled over the coming months: if he continues to seek out larger platforms to disseminate his message, and his star continues to rise, the assumption would be that he’s prepping to make a run at a position of greater influence. However, he told Rogan that he probably won’t stay in politics for the long term, which makes a presidential bid seem unlikely.
“I don’t want to do politics forever,” he said. “I like the work that I’m doing, I do think I’m making an impact. The bills I’ve passed are actually helping people…but [politics are] a bruising business to be in.”
It brings to mind the words of Hunter Thompson in Fear in Loathing on the Campaign Trail, where the famous Gonzo writer admits that his candidate of choice, George McGovern, whom he saw as a generally decent person, didn’t stand much of a chance against the duplicitous Richard Nixon, because McGovern was simply too good. “McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for,” Thompson wrote. “Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
It’s tough going for genuinely good human beings at the highest levels of elected office, considering the resolve of their morality is under constant duress from big money interests and the unavoidable vices that accompany such vast amounts of power and influence. It’s easy to have your ego warped by an outsized sense of importance, a reality that Talarico has experienced even in the political minor leagues of the Texas State House.
“People call you representative, your mail says ‘the honorable,’ and you’re like ‘this feels pretty good,’” he told Rogan. “You have a bunch of new friends, the lobbyists that are professionally friendly, and all of that can go to your head very quickly.” Talarico, it seems, may have no desire to wade even deeper into the political muck and mire, and if we are to take him at his word, he’d be perfectly content making a difference at a local level, within the confines of his faith tradition. “My goal is to go full-time in the ministry [once I’m ordained],” he told Rogan. “When [my pastor’s] ready to hang it up, I’d love to take over and lead my home church.” If so, good on him for following the path that makes his heart feel the fullest, not the path that yields him the most power.
Still, though: the amount of enthusiasm he’s garnered over the past several months, especially after his appearance on Rogan, is emblematic of how eager many Americans are to transcend this era of exhausting polarization, how much they’d prefer to vote for someone who isn’t simply the lesser of two evils. Maybe Talarico will ultimately become that person, maybe he won’t, but his ascension seems to prove just how desperate people are for a politician who can lead with love instead of fear, unity instead of division. That may seem hopelessly idealistic, given that politics have always been a dirty game, but it’s undeniable that Americans have become collectively malnourished from a lack of civility and genuine listening, and Talarico, who’s cutting his teeth by working across party lines with Texas uber-conservatives, of all people, seems like the right guy at the right moment to pull us back from the political fringes, to a place of healthy debate and respectful disagreement.
If Talarico ultimately chooses not to become that kind of figure, then the problem facing the Democratic Party is that candidates like him (re: young, exciting, different) can’t be manufactured in a D.C. think-tank. Buttigieg seems to be Talarico’s closest match at the national level in terms of earnestness, eloquence, and energy, but considering a woman hasn’t even been able to make it to the White House yet**, I have my doubts about America being ready to elect a gay man. Gavin Newsom is another name that’s being tossed around, and while he’s a talented orator with heaps of meaningful experience and the chutzpah to stand up to Trump, I don’t trust his glossy, guileful eyes, and honestly, he seems like just another entrenched politician with a soul formed from warm clay.
Against this potentially weak field of candidates, Talarico would seemingly stand as good a chance as anyone, if the all-powerful Democratic National Committee didn’t actively seek to undermine him, of course, like it purportedly did with Sanders in 2016.
Who am I to predict anything? This is all just conjecture and projection until the future folds into the present. Maybe Talarico’s righteous brand of politics wouldn’t play well at the national level. Maybe part of the curiosity surrounding him at the moment is based on his relative newness to the scene, the way he doesn’t seem beholden to anyone or anything other than a deeply-held sense of justice. Maybe greater exposure in the spotlight would lead to diminishing returns re: his appeal, or the increased pressure of playing in the political Big Leagues would pop his romanticism like an armadillo under a truck tire. Maybe he’d simply be out of his depth.
That said, if ever there was an opening for an outsider candidate in the Democratic Party, the liberal version of Donald Trump, as it were, that time is now. The current Democratic leadership is concerningly atomized, and the names that keep coming up in discussions about the future of the party (Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Newsom, Buttigieg) feel so familiar and, frankly, uninspiring (save, maybe, Buttigieg), that Talarico has a prime opportunity to inject his unique brand of faith-based progressivism into his party’s bloodstream. Even if he didn’t ultimately win the nomination, which would be an arduous road, indeed, he’d make a lot of people reconsider what a successful Democrat can look like in the era of Peak Trumpism.
***
At the 40-minute mark of his interview with Rogan, Talarico dives into the classic three-fold story of Jesus: his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Talarico explains that this pattern of creation, destruction, and recreation repeats itself not only in organized religion, but also within the fabric of the universe. It is, in essence, a framework to understand our existence. Talarico goes on to say that Christianity is currently stuck on that last phase, the resurrection, considering many Millennials and Zoomers have abandoned the church altogether because, as he puts it, they’re “waking up to how broken organized religion is.”
The same thing could be said, I think, about the Democratic Party: it suffered a publicly humiliating crucifixion in the 2024 election, and is now muddling around in its resurrection phase, trying to figure out how to rebuild the ruins. What scripture teaches us, Talarico tells Rogan, is that there’s “power in disillusionment, that’s fertile ground…[because] something new and beautiful rises from those ashes.” Talarico could potentially be that phoenix, or at least the harbinger of that phoenix. But who could blame him if he doesn’t want to bear that burden?
* Granted, these long-form interviews are then trimmed into 15-second clips and posted on YouTube for mass consumption, but that’s a topic for another time.
** Though Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris weren’t exactly ideal candidates, gender notwithstanding. I’m optimistic that we, as a country, would be open to electing a female president if the right candidate came along.
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