A fresh-faced, young disciple of the religious left and a carpetbagging Democratic state Representatives may have made news with his announcement for higher office this morning. Yet his message is as old as Karl Marx — certainly not an echo from First Century Judea.

Rep. James Talarico announced today he will oppose former congressman Colin Allred and former astronaut Terry Virts for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. The winner will take on either incumbent John Cornyn, current Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, or another Republican contender in the November 2026 election, and any number of assorted third party and independent hat-throwers.

“It’s time to start flipping tables,” Talarico crowed in his campaign announcement video, released today, a nod to Jesus’s famous disruption of currency exchange businesses in the Temple at Jerusalem. The video, filmed at a dude ranch west of Austin complete with an old chapel and a rusted pickup for a stage, misses the point of Jesus’s rebellious act almost entirely — and is about as genuine as the movie set behind him.

Talarico, despite making similar charges regarding socially conservative activists, loves to merge church and state in his messaging. But we’ll do our best to unravel it and address each point as it stands.

‘Billionaires’
Though getting to be bit of a tired old canard of the Left, Talarico jumps head-first into a talking point of “billionaires” controlling the political narrative, preaching a gospel of wealth envy and the same us-versus-them mentality that once fueled Bolshevism. “Billionaires,” as if Talarico’s allies do not benefit from them, e.g. George Soros, but much only exist in the rightward format of Elon Musk or Rupert Murdoch. “Billionaires,” as if the American Dream is tainted. “Billionaires … because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power,” said Talarico, who has raised nearly $3 million in  his political career. No mention of how he would encourage Texans to become more prosperous — just how he’s gonna beat those big nasty rich people. “The biggest divide in our country is not not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom,” he said, drawing applause from the assembled audience for the shooting.

‘Gutting’
Following the stab at [other] rich people, Talarico accused this concentration of wealth and power of wanting to gut public education and health care spending, while “cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends … it is the oldest strategy in the world.” Zero mention of the fact that U.S. health spending has tripled since the turn of the millennium (approaching $5 trillion) or that public ed spending is up over 150% since the feds start micromanaging it in the ’70s. And certainly no mention of smarter spending — God forbid we address that.

‘We’re all holy’
Speaking of God, Talarico took referenced not his own theological aspirations but that his grandfather was a Baptist minister who preached the Gospel of “a barefoot rabbi (not mentioning Jesus by name) who gave two commands: love God and love neighbor.” Talarico misses another: the Great Commission — an artful dodge given his following comment that “we’re all holy.”

“Every single person bears the image of the sacred,” he said, which is undoubtedly true according to Christian scripture (one may ask if this applies equally to the unborn). However, that same “barefoot rabbi” also said “you must be born again,” and that unholy people (by the default of original sin) need to be baptized and made disciples, which is the sum of the Great Commission. But what is the religious Left without a heaping helping of universalism and relativism?

‘Scare’ tactic
“I’m a former middle school teacher, and I don’t scare easily,” the candidate said, without referencing exactly who the scary people are — you’re supposed to infer that it’s (you guessed it) the big bad billionaires.

Yet there’s another boogeyman in between the lines: that of the conservative movement. Taking the pulpit once again, Brother James says that universal love he mentioned above must be applied “not just to my neighbors who look like me, pray like me, or vote like me.” By implication, anyone who disagrees with Talarico’s speech is racist (“look like me”), religiously biggoted (“pray like me”), or hyper-partisan (“vote like me”).

But fear not: his supporters can “come together across party, across gender, and across religion” to beat the GOP nominee and “take power back” … As if conservatism ever had its moment in the spotlight on the federal level, except for a few years in the mid-’90s. This begs the question: what is to be feared except the same progressivism that has had America in a headlock since at least the 1920s, or the gradual growth of government we’ve experienced since … well, 1776? “Physician, heal thyself,” a certain bare-toed Messiah might advise.

‘Rigged the system’
An ambient music organ starts to slowly reach a crescendo in the background as Talarico concludes his speech with a word about Jesus chasing out the money changers from the temple: “Two-thousand years ago, when the powerful few rigged the system, that barefoot rabbi walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice.” Indeed, the Romans had colluded with the Judaen authorities to establish a religon-state hybrid that both kept zealous Jewish separatists and land-hungry Roman imperialists alike placated. As we know, this alliance eventually fell apart with the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. You know the rest, diaspora and all.

But Talarico assumes that the money-changing was an act of “injustice.” We’ll spare the sermon, but look up what was required of those coming to give a sacrifice at the Temple during Passover — whether a live animal or an equivalent monetary donation ordained by the Law. The money changers were simply offering a much-needed service … but taking a cut for themselves. Despite the social contract, this is the practice Jesus referred to as “a den of thieves,” as he grabbed a whip and chased them out of his Father’s house.

What Talarico may not realize (or not fully realize) is that his political and theological allies are doing the roughly same thing, in the form of politicking in the name of religious charities. Talarico, a student at liberal Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, recently spoke at a forum co-sponsored by a progressive group and Interfaith Alliance. The subject? Redistricting, while calling on Christian voters to exercise “an exodus of faith” and reject Republican politics and the Trump administration’s agenda.

From Interfaith groups to the many pseudo-religious nonprofits which funnel dark money from federal grants and liberal cities to line the pockets of “community organizers” and social justice warriors, we know good and well why Jesus took up that whip and flipped over some tables.

From the hip:

Allred is taking the primary threat seriously, commenting “I’ve never taken anything for granted in life or politics, and this campaign is no exception.” Since consultants began polishing his star several months ago, Team Talarico is already on Allred’s six, even lifting Allred’s frequently used verbiage “rigged system.”

The oldest trick in the book, according to Talarico’s video, is a “divide and conquer” strategy used by the alleged system-riggers — the wealthy and powerful. This is almost as irony-rich as an Old Testament Bible story. The video was nothing but dividing the American people and attempting to conquer the Republican nominee in the mid-term election. And he’ll be using tomes of faith and “flipping tables” in order to bilk the faithful, while spending tens of millions to do it (yes, even from a few dreaded “billionaires,” we’re certain).

That’s exactly the kind of hypocrisy Jesus whipped and flipped. Let’s hope voters in 2026 will be as passionate about cleaning up house.