Thoughts on James Talarico

A friend forwarded me an email from a prominent left-Catholic journalist asking Texans, or perhaps by implication left-leaning Christian Texans, to contact her to chat about the recent ascension of James Talarico as senatorial candidate. I really thought about it—but then I was like, well, I’m shy, and I’m kind of a non-representational freak, and I don’t want to waste this journalist’s time. But I did want to reflect on it! So I’ll waste your time instead.

The Republican Party is the only one of two national parties with a vision of governance; only, that vision sucks shit. A veteran comrade advised against referring to MAGA as a fascist movement because, unlike historical fascist movements which saw the national financial bourgeoisie revolt against the globalized financial bourgeoisies of Britain and the United States, MAGA is more like a revolt of our national industrial bourgeoisie against our globalized financial bourgeoisie. Still, I think there are deeper confluences between MAGA and historical fascist movements than mere tactics: sure, both wield racism and sexism (etc.) in service of class alliance more generally, but the common driving force is downward mobility and the loss of privileged status within one’s class. The historical fascist financial bourgeoisies felt excluded from the relationship between the globalized financial bourgeoisie and their own nation’s industrial bourgeoisie, and the MAGA base feels excluded from the relationship between their nation’s own globalized bourgeoisie and other nations’ industrial bourgeoisies. In both cases, they recruit the higher sections of their nation’s proletariat or petite bourgeoisie also suffering (or feeling as if they suffer) downward mobility, with the promise of restoring lost privilege from the ‘barbarians’ and ‘degenerates’ on whom the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie apparently bestowed favor.

Anyway: anyone who disagrees with the MAGA vision is cast as a liberal, or a democrat, or woke, or DEI—but you might see how wide a net “anti-MAGA” truly is, including many different and even diametrically opposed interests. This proves a little problematic when the Democratic Party defines itself as basically anti-MAGA: anyone who isn’t Republican automatically votes or campaigns as Democrat because they don’t have any other option, so the Party as an institution (especially being funded by the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie) gets to regulate and gatekeep terms of dissent. The Party usually prefers terms which are a middle-ground between which policies Republicans profess and those which Republicans claim Democrats profess, whether because the Party is controlled opposition or it’s structurally predisposed against proletarian politics or it’s run by geriatric careerists with no stake in the game (all of the above?). It’s because of this I think “leftist” discourse around the Democratic Party is poisoned: no, you can’t take the reins of it; but, no, it’s not because its constituency is inherently bourgeois (it’s not inherently anything). It’s just that the Party’s function as an institution is to promote the long-term health of capitalism and the liberal world order, contra the short-term interests of individual capitals, and contra the interests of those whose favor it has no choice but to gesture at currying.

But if a politician with an actual vision manages to slip through the cracks of the institution, I won’t hold my nose. That’s kind of where I see James Talarico, for whom I actually voted during the recent primaries. I’m not taking the side of capital’s cosmopolitan tendency (to expand market opportunity) versus its reactionary tendency (to promote class alliance along racist and sexist lines). It’s also not about morals or lesser-evilism for me. I’m self-interested. Whether or not I vote, the USA will descend deeper into imperialist decadence and self-destruction. Not voting doesn’t do anything except give you clout with people who also don’t do anything. Voting means either our current trajectory doesn’t change or that trajectory or our living conditions slightly improve. So, again, I won’t hold my nose—but I’m especially interested in what someone like Talarico means for political discourse on the national level: engaging in semi-proletarian politics outside of social democracy; professing a concrete vision of governance that isn’t fascist; wrestling away religion as a tool of fear into one of praxis centered on agapē. The chance is really slight that Talarico will accomplish anything, being (potentially) one of one hundred representatives, but I’m not just not holding my nose. I’m smelling. I’m huffing.

I’m still not going to delude myself that anything really good will come out of the Party, institutional or otherwise. Personally, I’m participating in and contributing to local orgs. My area’s food bank seems to go far with their donations, so I’m tithing into that. More useful than putting your faith in any party which exists right now, whether the Democrats or the DSA or the PSL or the FRSO. Still, I hope Talarico fosters good discourse and gets people thinking about alternative visions than what either party offers (or doesn’t). If woke evangelical Christian Democracy becomes a thing, that would kinda rule and be funny.