The MAGA Christian movement is extreme, and like most extremes, it is a minority. But they are loud and vicious. Naturally, they see more mainstream Christians as the extremists. RELIGION ‘FAKE’ CHRISTIAN? OR FAITHFUL? Though MAGA believers call James Talarico “blasphemous,” he’s squarely within his Mainline Presbyterian tradition. And that’s a timely reminder of the diversity of Christianity in Texas and beyond. by DAVID R. BROCKMAN JUNE 3, 2026, 10:51 AM, CDT “One of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian.” That’s how conservative New York Times columnist David French recently characterized James Talarico and the Texas Democrat’s “faith-forward” campaign for the U.S. Senate. It should come as no surprise that Talarico walks the Christian walk: He’s currently on leave from his training for the ministry at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (APTS). However, given the MAGA Christian response to the young politician-seminarian, you might think it was the Antichrist running for the Senate. He’s been called “demonic,” a “fake Christian,” and “blasphemous,” with “very, very radical and extreme views.” One Newsmax host accused him of using “fake passages from the Bible, tortured and misrepresented.” Talarico has drawn fire for characterizing God as “nonbinary,” though he later explained he meant God is “beyond gender” (a common theological notion). U.S. Representative Ronny Jackson, an Amarillo Republican, said the statement showed Talarico is “a full-on RADICAL LEFTIST!!” Such over-the-top rhetoric is a sad fact of life in this age of post-truth hyperbole. But the ferocity of anti-Talarico invective reveals a deep and very public clash between two distinct ways of being Christian. While MAGA Christians insist that the Bible dictates their anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant Christian nationalism, the Mainline Protestant tradition—of which Talarico’s Presbyterian Church (USA) is a part—has a very different understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, one that leads to a politics precisely opposite from that of MAGA Christians. Within this Mainline tradition, Talarico is quite orthodox. His campaign, then, and the shrill attacks it provokes from right-wing Christians, is a vivid reminder of just how varied Christianity is. And paradoxically, Talarico’s unabashedly biblical politics also underscore the imperative of defending our nation’s venerable, but now vulnerable, tradition of church-state separation. … Whether he’ll be Texas’ future senator remains to be seen. But his “faith-forward” campaign reminds us of our state’s religious diversity—and of our shared imperative to guard against religious tyranny.
Fox: By a 15-point margin, Ohioans view Trump negatively: 42% hold a favorable opinion and 57% an unfavorable one. That’s more than a 20-point swing compared to his +6 net positive rating (52-46%) in the November 2024 Ohio Fox News Voter Analysis election survey. The poll of Ohio voters, released Wednesday, finds Trump’s ratings are about on par with views of Republican incumbent Senator Jon Husted (41% favorable, 50% unfavorable), while challenger and former Ohio Senator Brown is viewed significantly more positively (53% vs. 44%). That helps Brown outperform Husted by a 53% to 45% margin in the race to fill the state’s Senate seat. His 8-point lead is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.
