State Rep. James Talarico, second from left, listens during a town hall event in San Antonio. Credit: Stephanie Koithan

In a grasping-for-straws hit piece aired Monday, Fox News tried to paint U.S. Senate candidate Texas Rep. James Talarico, a Democratic rising star, as a divisive radical leftist. 

Fox’s attack on the progressive lawmaker from Pflugerville stems from a four-year-old tweet in which he commented on a spate of mass-shootings at Asian American-owned spas in Atlanta.

“Black Americans in a church. Mexican Americans in a store. Asian Americans in a spa,” Talarico wrote, citing a string of mass shootings that authorities have called out as being racially motivated. “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.”

Fox News tried to use the tweet as a “gotcha” moment, painting Talarcio as too unhinged to represent Texas.

“He is one of many extremists, far-left Democrats that will vilify Republicans at any cost because it gets him praise from the woke mob, and Texas voters will never elect him to statewide office because of it,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Joanna Rodriguez opined to Fox. 

Back in the real world, Talarico appears to be anything but. 

Following the assassination of right-wing personality Charlie Kirk, Talairco changed his plans to hold a political rally in San Antonio for his senate bid, instead turning it into a more somber affair. 

“I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor,” Talarico said hours after Kirk’s death. “I am tired of being told to hate my neighbor. People across the political spectrum in this state and in this country are hungry for a different kind of politics, not a politics of fear, not a politics of hate, not a politics of violence, but a politics of love that can heal what’s broken in this country.”

Some extremist, eh?  

What’s more, Talarico’s tweet about radicalized white men was correct, according to federal law enforcement officials.

A May 2021 report from the Department of Homeland Security found that domestic terrorism “advocating for the superiority of the white race,” was among the greatest threats to national security. 

The report also found that the most common acts of domestic violence involved “using weapons acquired with relative ease” to carry out attacks on civilians. 

Seems like Talarico may have had a point. 

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This article appears in Sep. 18-Oct. 1.

Michael Karlis is a Staff Writer at the San Antonio Current. He is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Orlando...