Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?; The New York Times, The Ezra Klein Show, January 13, 2026

Ezra Klein

Produced by Marie Cascione,

The New York Times, The Ezra Klein Show; Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?

"One of my obsessions over the last few years has been the role of attention in modern American politics: the way attention is a fundamental currency, the way it works differently than it did at other times when it was controlled by newspaper editorial boards. So I’ve been particularly interested in politicians who seem native to this attentional era, who seem to have figured something out.

We’ve talked a lot about how the Trump administration uses attention, how Zohran Mamdani uses attention. But somebody who has been breaking through over the past year in a very interesting way is James Talarico, a state representative from Texas.

Talarico is a little bit unusual for a Democrat. He’s a very forthright Christian politician. He roots his politics very fundamentally in a way you don’t often hear from Democrats in his faith.

Archival clip of James Talarico: Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor.

But Talarico began emerging as somebody who was breaking through on TikTok, Instagram and viral videos where he would talk about whether or not the Ten Commandments should be posted in schools, as a bill had proposed:

Archival clip of Talarico: This bill, to me, is not only unconstitutional, it’s not only un-American, I think it is also deeply un-Christian.

And the ways in which the Bible’s emphasis on helping the poor and the needy had been perverted by those who wanted to use religion as a tool of power and even greed:

Archival clip of Talarico: Jesus liberates, Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves, Christian nationalism kills.

What was really surprising to many people is that he ended up on Joe Rogan’s podcast — the first significant Democrat that Rogan seemed interested in, in a very long time.

Archival clip of Joe Rogan: You need to run for president. [Laughter]. Because we need someone who’s actually a good person.

Now Talarico is running for Senate in Texas. He’s running in a primary with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett for what will be one of the most important Senate elections in the country.

So I wanted to have Talarico on the show to talk to him about his faith, his politics and the way those two have come together in this attentional moment to allow him to say things in a language and within a framework that people seem to really want to hear, that people seem hungry for: a language of morality, and even of faith, at a time of incredible cruelty. And at a time when the radicalism of faith seems to have been perverted by the corruption of politics...

I think as somebody who is outside Christianity, and as such, is always a little bit astonished by the radicalism of the text and the strangeness of it — God incarnated in a human being, that human being is tortured and murdered and rises again as a lesson in mercy and forgiveness and transcendence. There’s all manner of violence I’m doing to the story there. And the structure of the New Testament, to me, is: Jesus goes to one outcast member of society after another.

Then I look up into this administration, in particular, and I see people who are incredibly loud in their Christianity and also incredibly cruel in their politics. Put aside the question of what borders you think a nation must have — you can enforce that border in all manner of ways without treating people who are coming here to escape violence or to better their family’s life cruelly.

You can do it without the memes we see them make on social media of a cartoon immigrant weeping as she’s being deported. Of the A.S.M.R. video of migrants shackled to one another, dragging their chains, with the implication being that the sound of that should soothe you.

It is the ability to insist on your allegiance to such a radical religion, and then treat other human beings with such, genuinely, to me, unmitigated cruelty that I actually find hard, at a soul level, to reconcile.

Scripture says you can’t love God and hate other people. That’s in John 1. You can’t love God and abuse the immigrant. You can’t love God and oppress the poor. You can’t love God and bully the outcast. We spend so much time looking for God out there that we miss God in the person sitting right next to us, in that neighbor who bears the divine image. In the face of a neighbor, we glimpse the face of God.

The Commandment to love God and love thy neighbor is not from Christianity — it is from Judaism. And all Jesus is clarifying, as a kind of radical rabbi, is that your neighbor is the person you love the least.

The parable of the good Samaritan may be the most famous of Jesus’ parables. I think we forget in our modern context how shocking it was. Because today, being a good Samaritan just means helping people to the side of the road — which is good, you should do that. But for listeners in the first century, the Samaritans were not just a different religious group. The Samaritans were their sworn enemies.

And so he is pushing the boundaries on how we define “neighbor” and who we’re supposed to love.

Loving our enemies? Again, it has become trite in a culture dominated by Christianity, but none of us actually do that. None of us actually loves our enemies, even if we say we try to. So yes, I share the same revulsion: that Christians in the halls of power are blatantly violating the teachings of Christianity on a daily basis and hurting our neighbors in the process."

What happened to mercy?; The Washington Post, November 13, 2025

Thomas Banchoff , The Washington Post; What happened to mercy?

"Decades ago, Pope John Paul II made a plea for mercy. His 1980 encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) emphasized God’s forgiving love toward humanity and decried a widespread tendency to “remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy.” Instead of mercy, John Paul saw a rise in “spite, hatred and even cruelty.”

Mercy is painfully scarce in our politics today. When the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, appealed to President Donald Trump from the pulpit in January to show mercy toward the vulnerable, the president bristled and demanded an apology. In the months since, his administration’s policies have been rife with cruelty, from eliminating life-giving aid programs abroad to threatening to withhold food assistance for more than 40 million Americans."

‘Orwell: 2+2=5’ Review: How George Came to See the World as Orwellian; The New York Times, October 2, 2025

 Manohla Dargis, The New York Times; ‘Orwell: 2+2=5’ Review: How George Came to See the World as Orwellian

"“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude,” George Orwell wrote in 1946, a year after the end of the World War II. That line appears early in “Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5,” an essayistic documentary from Raoul Peck that surveys its title subject’s life and work, using them as a lens to explore authoritarian power in the past and the present. Densely packed, the movie is a whirlwind of ideas and images, by turns heady, enlivening, disturbing and near-exhausting. It’s a work of visceral urgency from Peck, who’s best known for his 2017 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” about James Baldwin.

Peck plucked that observation about art and politics from Orwell’s essential 1946 essay “Why I Write,” in which he lists “four great motives for writing” — especially for writing prose and, of course, aside from earning a living — including “political purpose.” Near the end of the essay, Orwell writes that he hopes to start a new book. What soon followed was “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the seismic novel that helped turn his name into an adjective. Anchored by Orwell’s writing — and Damian Lewis’s calm, intimate voice-over — Peck charts the writer’s life in tandem with world-shattering events, focusing on when he was working on “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” which was published in 1949. Months later, Orwell was dead."

"O for a muse of fire": The modern appeal of Shakespeare, June 8, 2025

Mo Rocca , CBS News Sunday Morning; "O for a muse of fire": The modern appeal of Shakespeare

"Dowd says it's fitting that the Folger is located in the nation's capital: "Outside in the garden, there's a silvery statue of Puck from 'Midsummers Night's Dream,' and the line, 'Lord, what fools these mortals be,' and it faces the Capitol. And there's never been a more apt description of politics in Washington than that."

In fact, Dowd says, Shakespeare was a cultural father figure to America's earliest leaders. "The Founding Fathers were very steeped in Shakespeare," she said. "Thomas Jefferson advised people to read Shakespeare from the time it got dark 'til the time they went to bed."

John Adams read Shakespeare to better understand the dark side of power, and how to protect against it. "The Founding Fathers definitely used it to form the Republic," she said. 

Dowd herself cites the Bard in her new collection, "Notorious," just as she has in her column ever since 1995, when Bill Clinton was president. "Clinton just is such a classic Shakespeare character because he just had this tragic flaw of recklessness," Dowd said. 

She compared Vice President Dick Cheney to Iago, preying on the insecurities of George W. Bush's Othello … Barack Obama to Hamlet, for his hesitancy and indecisiveness … and as for Joe Biden? "If Joe Biden had read 'King Lear,' he would've realized the dangers of the gerontocracy, and you really should not cling to power and suffocate the younger people who are coming along," Dowd said.

And then there's the current commander-in-chief: "Donald Trump reminds me of several different plays. He's kind of like late Lear, howling at the moon. He's also like Julius Caesar in a republic, but trying to grab the crown and think of himself as an emperor," Dowd said."

Trump official's stingy worldview fits American Calvinist ethics without obligations; National Catholic Reporter, April 2, 2025

MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS, National Catholic Reporter; Trump official's stingy worldview fits American Calvinist ethics without obligations

 "The political genius of Catholicism is that it insists on the dignity of the individual, the significance of rootedness in particular and familial groups, and the universal application of our ethical norms. It is a genius the country needs, but history is littered with clamant needs that no one recognized at the time. 

Ours is not an epoch that warms to Catholicism's "both/and" approach to the intellectual and moral life. The contours of both our ideological polarization and of our social media have created an "either/or" world. That fact is killing our culture."

Academic Publishers Braced for Slowdown as Trump DEI Purge Bites; Inside Higher Ed, March 21, 2025

Jack Grove for Times Higher Education; Academic Publishers Braced for Slowdown as Trump DEI Purge Bites

"Academic presses may face a slump in sales as U.S. university librarians become more cautious about buying books related to gender, politics or race in light of Donald Trump’s attack on “woke” research, publishers have warned."

The Mercy Pulpit & The Sermon Heard Around the World; Religion News Service (RNS), Complexified, January 27, 2025

Jonathan Woodward, Religion News Service (RNS), Complexified Podcast; The Mercy Pulpit & The Sermon Heard Around the World

"God and Trump collide

In a week of political and religious tension, sparks flare at the National Cathedral. Host Amanda Henderson and RNS Executive Editor Roxanne Stone delve into how this sermon—calling for mercy and justice—reshaped the national discourse and exposed the fractures between competing Christianities. From Trump’s invocation of divine authority to the shifting influence of evangelical power, they explore how faith and politics are shaping America’s identity and future."

What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family; NPR, October 22, 2024

Katia Riddle , NPR; What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family

"Every year the American Psychological Association takes a look at the leading causes of stress in the U.S., and publishes an annual report. This year the report shows all the usual suspects like money, health and family are still wearing people down, but one issue is dominating – politics.

Seven out of 10 adults say the future of the nation is a significant source of stress in their lives and the issue crosses party lines: 80% of Republicans rated it a top stressor, so did 79% of Democrats and 73% of Independents. Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and APA’s deputy chief, professional practice, says she was surprised by the findings...

The report – called Stress in America 2024: A Nation in Political Turmoil — details the results of a survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the APA. More than 3,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older were surveyed between August 1st and 23rd, 2024...

A majority of respondents are also concerned about misinformation and disinformation — 82% said they are worried that people are basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information.

Bufka says one of the problems is Americans are not seeing the things that matter to them represented in the political discourse...

There is some positive news in the report. Three out of five people felt hopeful about the election results. Stress can also galvanize people into action; 80% of survey respondents say they do intend to vote in the Presidential election."

2024 Tech Ethics Symposium: Coming October 17-18!; Duquesne University, October 17-18, 2024

 Duquesne University; 2024 Tech Ethics Symposium: Coming October 17-18!; How is AI Transforming Our Communities?

"The Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law will host the fifth annual Tech Ethics Symposium: “How is AI Transforming Our Communities?” This two-day symposium, co-sponsored by the Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business, will focus on how generative AI is transforming our daily lives and our communities. It will also explore how AI has already changed our region and will continue to alter our world in the next decade.

How do major stakeholders like journalists, educators, and tech workers use AI to shape our community?  How have professional communities in tech, journalism, and education been impacted already by AI? What is the role of politics in responding to AI’s influence on, and through, these impactful stakeholder communities? What has AI changed for communities of faith, artists, people with disabilities, and historically marginalized communities? What can each of us do to utilize –or avoid– AI to ensure strong, healthy human communities?"

Mark Zuckerberg Isn’t Done With Politics. His Politics Have Just Changed.; Mother Jones, September 24, 2024

 Tim Murphy, Mother Jones; Mark Zuckerberg Isn’t Done With Politics. His Politics Have Just Changed.

"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that one of the world’s richest men had recently experienced a major epiphany. After bankrolling a political organization that supported immigration reform, espousing his support for social justice, and donating hundreds of millions of dollars to support local election workers during the 2020 election, “Mark Zuckerberg is done with politics.”

The Facebook founder and part-time Hawaiian feudal lord, according to the piece, “believed that both parties loathed technology and that trying to continue engaging with political causes would only draw further scrutiny to their company,” and felt burned by the criticism he has faced in recent years, on everything from the proliferation of disinformation on Facebook to his investment in election administration (which conservatives dismissively referred to as “Zuckerbucks”). He is mad, in other words, that people are mad at him, and it has made him rethink his entire theory of how the world works.

It’s an interesting piece, which identifies a real switch in how Zuckerberg—who along with his wife, Priscilla Chan, has made a non-binding pledge to give away a majority of his wealth by the end of his lifetime—thinks about his influence and his own ideology. But there’s a fallacy underpinning that headline: Zuckerberg isn’t done with politics. His politics have simply changed."

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley; The New York Times, August 2, 2018

Kara Swisher, The New York Times;

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley

"All these companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world. But they have done that in ways they did not imagine — by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized. They have mutated human communication, so that connecting people has too often become about pitting them against one another, and turbocharged that discord to an unprecedented and damaging volume.

They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment. They have weaponized civic discourse. And they have weaponized, most of all, politics...

Because what he never managed to grok then was that the company he created was destined to become a template for all of humanity, the digital reflection of masses of people across the globe. Including — and especially — the bad ones.

Was it because he was a computer major who left college early and did not attend enough humanities courses that might have alerted him to the uglier aspects of human nature? Maybe."

How Do Journalistic Standards Apply When Covering Donald Trump?; Here & Now, 8/9/16

[Podcast] Here & Now; How Do Journalistic Standards Apply When Covering Donald Trump? :

"New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg wrote yesterday that Donald Trump is testing the standard of objectivity among the journalists who cover him. He says journalists have to throw out the textbooks they have used for decades in covering politics.

Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Rutenberg and NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik about the challenges journalists face covering Trump."

The Corrosive Politics That Threaten L.G.B.T. Americans; New York Times, 6/15/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; The Corrosive Politics That Threaten L.G.B.T. Americans:

"While the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear, it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians. Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish...

It’s hard to say how many politicians take these positions as a matter of principle and how many do so because it has proved to be an effective way in the past to raise money and turn out the vote. As the funerals are held for those who perished on Sunday, lawmakers who have actively championed discriminatory laws and policies, and those who have quietly enabled them with votes, should force themselves to read the obituaries and look at the photos. The 49 people killed in Orlando were victims of a terrorist attack. But they also need to be remembered as casualties of a society where hate has deep roots."

Beware: Exploding Politics; New York Times, 3/2/16

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times; Beware: Exploding Politics:

"We have major issues that Congress needs to resolve via politics, and the failure to do so will really hurt us: How do we balance privacy and security? How do we expand free trade and cushion our workers hurt from the effects? How do we make the fixes in Obamacare to make it more sustainable? These will all require hybrid compromises, not dogmatism.

The guy who actually understands this is President Obama. He’s never been as strong on entrepreneurship as I would like, but he’s also never been the radical lefty the G.O.P. invented. His instinct has become hybrid — to combine support for free trade and immigration, to implement a Common Core to upgrade education, to provide health care so workers can be more mobile, to fund more Pell grants so more students can afford college, to make investments in clean tech, to make changes in the tax code to narrow income gaps — all to make the country more resilient. We could have done so much more with his presidency.

What is fascinating about Donald Trump is that he is blowing up the Republican Party by offering a totally new hybrid politics."

The Governing Cancer of Our Time; New York Times, 2/26/16

David Brooks, New York Times; The Governing Cancer of Our Time:

"We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society — politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers chose politics.

Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.

The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.

But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way."