Watch: James Talarico Berated by Questioner at Town Hall Event

www.westernjournal.com

It’d be ironic, and a great bit of fun to boot, if woke “Presbyterian seminarian” and Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico ends up getting taken down by identitarian wokeistas in the end.

I’m not saying that’ll happen, mind you, but if a Sunday town hall in Houston is any indication, he might have a bit of trouble winning over the Lone Star State’s black voters.

Video from the event, first posted by the Austin American-Statesman’s Faith Bugenhagen, shows Talarico effectively being held hostage by a black woman screaming, “you stay here, you answer our questions or you suffer the consequences.”

Houston is one of the areas where Talarico needs a serious turnout in November to beat the Republican nominee, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

A large part of the Democratic base there is black, and it’s worth noting that the woman Talarico beat in the primary — U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett — is still banging on about how she lost because “the race was racist”:

This is incredibly untrue — but if obvious untruths were disqualifying for a Democrat, they’d hardly have any candidates left, especially among the woke contingent. If you will believe a man is a woman simply because he wears a dress and changes his pronouns in his social media bios, you’ll more or less believe anything.

Furthermore, as The Hill noted, Crockett “won counties with large shares of Black voters — such as Harris County, which includes Houston, and Dallas County.” If they don’t turn out in massive numbers, he’s cooked. And while Crockett has endorsed him, she’s not campaigned with him, claiming that she can help him more by helping down-ballot black candidates.

And while Talarico received a standing ovation before the town hall at the Kingdom Builders Center, things went downhill before it was over.

Bugenhagen reported that the tense exchange started at the end of the scheduled question-and-answer period, which the woman apparently felt shouldn’t be ending. She was identified by the Houston Chronicle as Kandace Webber.

According to Newsweek, Webber is “an activist and organizer for the Houston wing of Black Lives Matter.”

“So you stay here, you answer our questions or you suffer the consequences,” Webber says at the beginning of the video.

“Say it with your chest!” one of her supporters exclaimed.

“So, I’m happy to engage,” Talarico said haltingly. “… I appreciate you being here, and I appreciate you traveling in, and I appreciate–“

“I did it for my people, not for you!” Webber shot back, drawing oohs and claps.

“And — it’s all right, it’s all right,” a flustered Talarico said. “This is what — this is what this conversation is supposed to be about.”

What conversation? She was angry at you because you wouldn’t subject yourself to a struggle session with angry black voters, dude, and she was talking past your entire message to attack your identity. She’s not there for you, after all, she’s there for her “people.” Look at her: She’s the captain now.

And this wasn’t the only report of unrest at the rallies, with the Texas Tribune’s Kayla Guo reporting that another attendee shouted “this is why black Texans don’t trust you” at the candidate:

This, in the end, might end up being Talarico’s greatest weakness: He’s a mayo-white dude who’s a trashcan full of luxury beliefs whose election won’t make anyone’s life better, save for James Talarico and his coterie of aides and advisers.

Take away any one of these things and it might be enough in a midterm year, especially with money pouring in and no Republican incumbent on the ballot. But the confluence of all of these — a member of the Privileged Class™, no steady beliefs outside of the “God is nonbinary” school of piffle, no real advantage to Texans in the whole scheme of things unless said Texans are employed by Talarico personally — is a poisonous concoction for the kind of wokeista identity voter who he’s counting in Texas’ urban areas.

Not that Crockett would have been better (and her implosion would have been far more spectacular and crippling for state Democrats), but the possibility that this charlatan ends up getting eaten alive by the same class that’s taken the reins of the Democratic Party would indeed be a chef’s kiss on top of merely saving the seat for the GOP.

Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.

Contributor, Commentary

SummaryMore Biographical InformationRecent PostsContact

C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.

C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).

Birthplace

Morristown, New Jersey

Education

Catholic University of America

Languages Spoken

English, Spanish

Topics of Expertise

American Politics, World Politics, Culture