Talarico's taco order isn't destroying America. Paxton is. | Opinion

Republicans like newly minted U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton of Texas would like to you to know, in no uncertain terms, that Democrats are a pack of wild, tongue-wagging extremists out to destroy America.

Setting aside the fact that Republicans presently in power seem to be doing a perfectly good job on the “destroying America” front – and on the “being tongue-wagging extremists” front, as well – let’s consider how Paxton spoke about his opponent, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, following the Republican’s primary victory May 26.

In quick succession, Paxton, 63, referred to the 37-year-old Democrat as “Tofu Talarico,” “James Tala-freako” and “Low-T Talarico.” Paxton then added, ominously: “But no matter what you call him, let me tell you this, James Talarico is a threat to everything we hold dear here in this state and in this country.”

Republicans are the extremists. And they're running out of tricks.

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said, “Tala-freako is a creep. He's a vegan. He thinks God is nonbinary. He wants to mutilate children."

Good lord. I need a translator who can teach me how to say “calm down” in Republican.

The claims against Talarico are, of course, nonsense and weird exaggerations that pale in comparison with a fraction of Paxton's scandals. It’s red meat that MAGA politicians like Paxton think they can still effectively throw at a GOP base growing angry over high gas prices and a president whose primary interest seems to be self-adulation and building a fancy ballroom.  

But the days of Paxton or any Trump-loyal Republican being able to label somebody else an extremist are numbered.

Ken Paxton is a scandal-ridden right-wing extremist. Period.

Here’s a quick summary of part of Paxton’s background from The Washington Post: “He was impeached by the Republican-controlled state House on multiple charges of abuse of office. His own senior staffers reported him to the FBI, alleging he illegally used his position to help a prominent donor. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce last year on ‘biblical grounds,’ citing adultery.”

On top of that, he headed up a lawsuit attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, sued the Biden administration more than 100 times as Texas’ attorney general, and was behind one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country.

Paxton’s Senate campaign went heavy on anti-Muslim propaganda, accusing his Republican primary opponent of having “a special place in his heart for radical Islam” and being in favor of “Muslim mass immigration.”

The man is a walking scandal, and a slurry of right-wing cruelty and bigotry. And the extremism that Republicans have wrapped their arms around, while using the full force of the government to push.

Ordering a breakfast taco without meat does not make one an extremist

Talarico once ordered a breakfast taco with potato, egg and cheese on it, and now Paxton and the MAGA hate-machine label him a vegan, as if veganism is a sure-fire sign of extremism. (Talarico has confirmed multiple times that he is a carnivore, breakfast-taco order notwithstanding.)

In our right-wing-media-dominant country – where the loudest, most outrageous voices are somehow treated as the most relevant – Democrats are routinely labeled as radicals while Republicans who live in service to a swiftly eroding billionaire narcissist are given a pass.

Trump wants to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on a ballroom nobody else cares about while Americans struggle to fill their gas tanks. That, to some Republicans, is fine. Trump and his family are tied up in more self-enrichment schemes than we can keep track of? Also fine for folks like Paxton.

Trump starts an unnecessary war with Iran? Republicans fall in line and declare it the most brilliant military strategy in history.

But Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, fails to put meat on a breakfast taco, and he is A RADICAL EXTREMIST WHO WILL DESTROY ALL WE HOLD DEAR!!

'I pray that God kills him' sounds pretty extreme to me

Brooks Potteiger, a pastor and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spiritual adviser, recently agreed with a podcast host who said of Talarico, “I pray that God kills him.”

Talarico responded by posting on social media: “You may pray for my death, Pastor, but I still love you. I love you more than you could ever hate me.”

That’s the one they’re calling “Tala-freako”?

Republicans have lost any sense of what's happening around them

We’re living in an upside-down world. The MAGA-supporting political right is so far up its own keister it can taste the bile in its mouth. And its members get away with being extremists while labeling others as extreme because they’ve built an impermeable, fact-resistant bubble around themselves.

For any person inhabiting reality, the extremists have made themselves known. And they’re not James Talarico, and they’re not the Democratic lawmakers who are trying to constrain an authoritarian administration. 

My hope, as the campaigns for the midterm elections in Texas and across the country continue, is that the GOP’s bubble gets the popping it deserves. And voters thirsty for sanity recognize that the side that keeps screaming panicky nonsense is not the side that has their best interests at heart.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.