Texas Democrats called out over ‘circular firing squad behavior’ in Senate race

Democrats in Texas were called out on Friday in an Atlantic article for their “circular-firing squad behavior” in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.

“The party’s latest and most egregious circular-firing-squad behavior transpired earlier this week, when the Democrat Colin Allred, who’d previously dropped out of the Senate race, endorsed Jasmine Crockett, one of the two remaining major competitors. He gave his reason for doing so in a video he posted to social media on Monday,” Atlantic writer Jonathan Chait wrote.

The article referenced comments made by Morgan Thompson, a political influencer who posts on TikTok under the username @morga_tt, who claimed that state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, referred to former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, as a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico, who is now facing off against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, allegedly told Thompson that he “signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent Black woman.”

Allred responded to the comments in a video on social media, and encouraged people to vote for Crockett.

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Allred dropped out of the Senate Race in December.

Chait wrote that Allred chose the most “inflammatory response” to post on TikTok.

“Allred did not have to record and share his response to Talarico, nor was he required to take the allegation at face value. He chose the most inflammatory response,” he wrote.

Allred said, “We’re tired of folks using praise for Black women to mask criticism for Black men.”

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“Everything about this episode reveals levels of pathological incompetence. Crockett and her supporters are prying open fissures that will scar whichever candidate emerges. They are expressing themselves in social-justice jargon that might be effective in a student-council race at Wesleyan but sounds completely alien to most Texans,” Chait wrote.

Chait also criticized Crockett for her plan to win over voters that have historically not been reached. The progressive firebrand has said she doesn’t need to win over voters who supported President Donald Trump. She said during an interview on CNN in December, “Our goal is to make sure that we can engage people that historically have not been talked to.”

“Crockett has suggested that she can help drive turnout of infrequent voters. The belief that there is a hidden reservoir of left-wing voters who will bother to show up at the polls only if a sufficiently progressive candidate activates their interest is a decades-old myth,” Chait argued.

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He also argued that concerns about Crockett’s electability were not racist, as she has suggested. Chait specifically referenced podcast hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers telling listeners not to waste money on her campaign.

In response, Crockett said the hosts were saying the “quiet part out loud.”

“I really do think that the host said the quiet part out loud, which basically was: If a White man couldn’t do it, then why would a Black woman even have the audacity to think that she could?” Crockett said.

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“One fatal flaw of progressive identity norms, which treat women and people of color as experts on racism and sexism whose charges of bias cannot be refuted, is that they insulate bad arguments from scrutiny. The belief that swing voters in Texas are too racist and sexist to be compromised with implies that defeat is the only morally acceptable option,” he wrote.