When the Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton at their national convention in 2016, and got ready to face off against Donald Trump for the presidency, Michelle Obama memorably said: “When they go low, we go high.”
It is safe to say that the opposing Republican Party has never embraced that mantra. Instead, it often finds new and dramatic ways to go lower – as Vice President JD Vance demonstrated at a campaign rally this week.
Trump and Vance are touring the country desperately trying to prop up states that looked like Republican strongholds just two years ago. At a rally in Tyler, Texas, Vance saw an opportunity to get in a low blow against James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate in the state.
Responding to a well-wisher in the crowd, Vance shouted back: “I love you too, sir – In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”
Talarico is not gay: for the last four years he has been in a relationship with Brianna Menard, who used to work for him as his chief of staff. If challenged, Vance would inevitably try to claim he was just joking, but his remarks – on mic, on stage, in the final weeks of an election – were clearly an attempt to falsely smear a political candidate in a conservative state.
Vance might have tried to play off the gay quip as a joke, but his prepared comments made even seedier insinuations against Talarico. Referencing a 2023 interview that Talarico gave, Vance said: “He was asked what he loves in life besides his own family and friends, and he responded without skipping a beat, and I quote, trans children,” he said. “Now, you got to wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like, ladies and gentlemen. You don’t want to find out. Neither do I.”
Even in a state like Texas, there is a chance that Vance’s remarks will backfire: randomly and falsely calling people gay is the kind of stuff that children used to do on the playground. Even in the degraded standards of the Trump era, it will offend some voters to see the vice president do it, especially during an official campaign stop.
Beyond that, though, the false jibes simply make Vance – and the entire Republican Party – look rattled. Donald Trump won the state by a margin of almost 14 points in 2024, and it is regarded as a Republican heartland. Why, then, is a liberal Democratic candidate like Talarico looking like he might win it – especially when they have painted him as a left-wing extremist in attack adverts for months?
Part of the answer lies in the weakness of the Republican Party’s own candidate, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who has been embroiled in multiple financial and ethical scandals centring on his own personal conduct – involving payouts of millions to whistleblowers he fired, an impeachment vote that passed the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives (though not its Senate), and an extra-marital affair that has led his wife to file for divorce.
Trying to make the Texas Senate race about personal integrity or personal conduct feels like a suicidal tactic for the Republican Party, given how many skeletons are jammed into their own candidate’s closet – and given the lack of dirt they have managed to find on Talarico, a committed Christian.
Vance might have thought he was playing a clever political game, trying to create lots of headlines with the words “Talarico” and “gay” in close proximity in a deniable way, in the hope that some voters who were only half paying attention might believe the smears. Presumably he hoped the same with his later vile innuendos.
But instead, he has just signalled his own desperation, and that of his party – if JD Vance thought Paxton was on course to win in Texas, he would never have made the joke. Polling suggests Talarico is slightly ahead in the race. If those are proven correct, Democrats would be on course for a huge political upset, taking on the Republicans in one of their absolute must-win heartland states.
If Talarico wins Texas, it is likely that Democrats would control both the House and the Senate – which would mean every single action that everyone in Trump’s administration has taken could be scrutinised in minute detail. Perhaps, then, it should be no surprise that JD Vance is so nervous – such attention might prove detrimental to his own presidential ambitions in 2028.
Vance’s attack on Talarico shows the deficiencies in his character – his willingness to resort to casual homophobia, his willingness to spread a false smear, and his utter disregard for any kind of common decency. But we’ve seen most of those before. What it really revealed is this: Vance, and his party, are getting desperate.