Video by Heather Cox Richardson. In this interview, Texas legislator James Talarico links faith and democracy, arguing love of neighbor, not domination, should guide politics, warning that Christian nationalism betrays both religion and American values.
📚 The Teacher Who Got Mad
James Talarico still tells the story like a wound. Sixth grade English on San Antonio’s west side. Forty five students and not enough desks. “Some sat on the air-conditioning unit, in the wealthiest country in human history.”
The year was 2011. Texas had just cut $5 billion from public schools. His students, mostly from working class Mexican American families, were left to adapt to those conditions. “It got me mad,” he says. “And I decided to do something about it.”
That sense of moral urgency, rather than partisanship, pushed him from the classroom into politics. In 2018, he ran for the Texas House at age 28 and won, flipping a suburban Republican district.
From Classroom to Capitol
At the Capitol, the teacher never left him. His legislation focused on early education, smaller class sizes, and school finance reform. He co-authored the Javier Ambler Act, banning police reality-TV filming after a Black man’s on-camera death.
Even adversaries noticed his tone: less attack-dog, more civics instructor. His floor speeches, often patient and grounded in scripture, regularly circulate online and sounded like mini-sermons. During a debate over posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, he warned colleagues, “You’re turning faith into force.”
Claiming LBJ’s Seat — and His Scale
Now 36, Talarico is running for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Lyndon B. Johnson. “This is LBJ’s seat,” he told historian Heather Cox Richardson. “And we need that kind of bold ambition again.”
Like Johnson, he wants to talk about eradicating poverty, not managing it. “We’ve set our sights too low,” he says. “We’re no longer building a great society, a country as big as our dreams.”
“The Only Thing Worse Than a Tyrant…”
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Talarico delivered a line that froze the host: “I’m a Christian, and there is no more dangerous form of government than theocracy, because the only thing worse than a tyrant is a tyrant who thinks they’re on a mission from God.”
He wasn’t attacking faith; he was defending it. “This is people trying to use my religion to control people.” In Texas, where far-right donors bankroll culture-war bills, he sees that danger daily.
Rogan, visibly impressed, broke from his usual skepticism to praise him outright, saying Talarico’s moral clarity and poise were so rare in politics that he should run for president.
Video by The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. | James Talarico defends the separation of church and state, arguing theocracy corrupts both faith and freedom while urging compassion, reason, and humility as politics’ moral core.
Who Built the Wall
Rogan called the idea of forcing religion into schools “crazy.” Talarico reminded him the “wall of separation” came from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, Christians who fled Europe’s state churches. “Once government starts preaching your religion,” he said, “both church and state rot.”
“If you want to deepen your faith, we have churches on every corner,” he added. “Why ask the government to play pastor?”
A Different Kind of Christianity
His grandfather was a Baptist preacher; he was raised Presbyterian; he’s now a seminary student. “My faith is the reason I’m in public service,” he says. “Jesus gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor. That second one is public.”
He knows why young Americans drifted from church. “Too many were told that being Christian meant hating gay people, controlling women, rejecting science,” he said. “So they chose their friends, their rights, and science — and that was always a false choice.”
The Translation Trap
Asked about scripture and sexuality, he turned professor. Jesus, he noted, never mentions homosexuality; the Hebrew texts rely on ancient euphemisms. “Two thousand years from now, how hard will it be to tell the difference between a butt dial and a booty call?”
“The word ‘homosexuality’ wasn’t invented until the 19th century. If you see it in your Bible, that’s a translation, an interpretation.” Weaponizing scripture, he said, “does violence to the text and to people.”
“Jesus simplified the law to two commandments,” he added. “Love God. Love neighbor. That’s the whole project.”
🕯️ Democracy as Spiritual Discipline
Talarico sees democracy as an extension of faith. “When religion gets too cozy with power, it loses its prophetic voice,” he says. “But faith and politics don’t have to be separate. They should meet at the point of moral commitment.”
He calls democracy “a spiritual exercise, a daily practice of empathy for those who are different from us.” Without it, polarization becomes contempt; with it, citizenship becomes moral work.
His campaign slogan, Faith in the Future, captures the theology: love that transcends tribe and ideology might still hold a country together.
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Faith-Fueled Populism for a New Texas
Texas once had a populism rooted in care, not anger. Richardson reminded him that early Populists “rejected bullying and yelling as masculinity.” He nodded. “There are many ways to be an American,” he said. “I just prefer the kind that cares.”
He frames modern politics not as left versus right but top versus bottom. “The billionaire megadonors divide us so we don’t notice they’re picking our pockets,” he says. “Faith should pull us back together.”
On The Keith Edwards Show, he put it more bluntly: “The more I see what’s happening in this state and in this country, the more I think the only minority destroying America is the billionaires. Trans people are 1% of the population. Muslims 1%. Undocumented people 1%. We’re focused on the wrong 1%.”
He knows the odds. No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994. But he measures victory differently. “We’re all called to walk that path together,” he says. “It’s hard work, but joyful work.” Talarico believes teaching and politics share the same goal: to expand understanding. “Democracy,” he says, “depends on whether we still believe in each other.”
In an age of performative faith and weaponized fear, his message lands like a quiet challenge: love your neighbor — then vote like you mean it.
