Tuesday, with that of Donald Trump approval and support from the MAGA faithful, scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn in a primary runoff to claim the Republican nomination for that seat.
He then quickly moved to portray his general election opponent, Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico, as insufficiently masculine.
“My opponent is the most extreme radical Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton said in his victory speech. “He’s even running a vegan campaign of some sort. He goes by a few names that you all might have heard of. Some people know him as Tofu Talarico. Some people call him Six-Gender Jimmy. I’ve even heard some people call him James Talafreako. And others just call him Low-T Talarico.”
The splashing of derogatory nicknames has not been a Trumpian success. (The Talarico campaign, already a fundraising juggernautstarted selling “I am a Talafreako“T-shirts right away). But Paxton’s attacks also seemed to emanate from manosphere And incel cultureoverlapping internet communities obsessed with their own unscientific theories about gender, sex, hormones, and diet.
Paxton’s first general election ad continued in this coded vein, presenting Talarico as both out of step with Texas values and lacking in testosterone: the spot ends by declaring the Democrat “too low for Texas.” Meanwhile, Trump adviser Stephen Miller went further, posting Wednesday on X that “Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender candidate for Senate.”
Trump, for his part, claimed that Talarico is “a vegan in Texas, and you can’t be elected vegan in Texas.”
Although his actual hormonal levels are not public knowledge, Talarico is neither transgender nor vegan. The latter claim apparently stems from comments he made while running for reelection to the Texas House of Representatives in 2022. At a fundraiser for the Texas Humane Legislation Network that year, he spoke about the need to reduce meat consumption — in part to combat climate change — and announced that his campaign was purchasing only vegan food products for its events. Talarico has not claimed to be vegan himself, has since denied being vegan, and ate meat and dairy while on the campaign trail. During a campaign stop at Austin’s Taco Joint earlier in May, Talaric orderd two potato, egg and cheese tacos – a completely legit taco order that’s also not vegan.
The fixation on the need to eat meat and maximize testosterone goes hand in hand with male-dominated podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience as well as toxic social media spaces where men denigrate supposedly weaker men as “soy boys.” But many of these notions have been echoed at the highest levels of the Trump administration, particularly in the messaging and policies of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose “Make America Healthy Again” embraces all manner of medical pseudoscience.
Kennedy, for example, sounded the alarm low testosterone levels in men. It misrepresents the issue somewhat, because while it is true that research shows declining testosterone levels, they are not in the clinically “low” range for the majority of men. He has also been fanatical in urging Americans to eat more meat in order to get their daily proteinorganizing photo sessions at barbecue And hamburger restaurants. (Ironically, whole soy foods, like tofu, are a rich source of protein, containing all the amino acids essential to human nutrition.)
The fact that Republicans are now using these concepts as a weapon against Talarico suggests that masculinist dogma has penetrated the national consciousness. Yet it is far from clear that any Texan will be particularly influenced by depictions of the former Presbyterian teacher and seminarian as unacceptably decadent. Additionally, while “vegan” and “low-T” may be common insults in some online hot spots, the slang of petty internet squabbles doesn’t necessarily translate to a statewide contest that will be decided by nearly 19 million eligible voters.
Eric Koch, Democratic strategist and founder of the political communications firm Downfield, doesn’t see insults as a winning formula. “Ken Paxton is desperate to distract from the fact that his own party impeached him and that he is the most corrupt politician in America,” Koch said. “He has nothing but name-calling, because his resume, from top to bottom, is a never-ending string of corruption and crime, and that’s why James is going to win this race.”
Other Democrats are also optimistic, noting Talarico’s speech strong polls and abundant liquidity– while some Republican leaders fear that admitting a tarnished Paxton to the Senate and maintaining their majority in the House will prove expensive.
Regardless, Paxton, his team, and MAGA loyalists have established that they all share Trump’s mindset, belittling the Democratic nominee with cheap taunts and constantly insinuating that he is not a “real” man. The question is whether all of this will make the Republican appear trustworthy.