Rather than simply suggesting Talarico is weak on border security or inflation economics, Paxton’s campaign has taken a different rhetorical approach. To quote Fox News host Jesse Watters, “The major factor in this race … is whether Tala-freak-o is a vegan.”
Though Talarico maintains he is not vegan, Paxton has referred to his opponent as “Tofu Talarico.”
Paxton and Watters aren’t the only ones making these dietary accusations.
Earlier this year, after Talarico ordered a potato, egg and cheese taco from a restaurant in Austin, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted to his campaign social platform X account: “Homie is not beating the vegetarian allegations.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz joked that if a soy latte could speak, “that would be Democrat James Talarico.” Even President Donald Trump has chimed in: “He’s a vegan in Texas, and you can’t get elected as a vegan in Texas.”
Again, Talarico denies being a secret vegetarian or vegan. “I’m an eighth-generation Texan,” he has said. “I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment.”
The accusations likely stem from a 2022 appearance with the Texas Humane Legislation Network when Talarico suggested Americans reduce their meat consumption for climate reasons. His girlfriend follows a plant-based diet. Nonetheless, Talarico says that his campaign “runs on barbecue.”
As communicationscholars who study the symbolic roles of meat and meat-eating in political communication, we see the construction of “Tofu Talarico” not as a one-off political jab but as part of a more sophisticated rhetorical strategy by which politicians appeal to voters.
Attacks on Talarico show how, across American politics, what people eat is a metaphoric marker of who they are, from political affiliation to regional belonging and cultural values. Eating meat – or not – plays a huge role in the political process, and accusations of meat avoidance, regardless of whether they’re true, can be a potent rhetorical weapon.
Meat, metaphor and political communication
Communication scholarship shows that metaphors, when a word or phrase denoting one object or idea is used in place of another, are more than literary decoration; they shape the way we perceive reality, acting as part of a “conceptual system” that enables snap judgments and decision-making.
As mental shortcuts, or heuristic devices, metaphors are common in political communication. They’re a means to “see something in terms of something else.”
For example, in the case of Paxton and Talarico, allegations of vegetarianism and veganism are not about Talarico’s nutritional profile or even his environmental ethics. Here, “vegan” and its analogues metaphorically stand in for weakness and nonconformity, whereas “meat” and its affiliates stand in for strength, traditionalism and the stereotypical Texan way.
This usage is consistent with what food politics researchers call the “sexual politics” of meat, wherein meat imagery is often used in displays of traditional masculinity. This is evident in other jabs levied at Talarico. For example, Watters linked Talarico’s diet to his sexual orientation, joking on Fox News that Talarico was a “gay vegan” with a fake girlfriend.
Dietary demographics and election modeling
Dietary preference also links to key political demographics. For example, political scientists have explored whether the concept of a Republican vegan is an oxymoron due to the deep entrenchment of meat-eating and meat production in primarily conservative regions.
Overwhelmingly, vegans tend to be women, young and liberal. Across all political identifications, being male and white correlates with higher meat consumption.
Even the choice of where to purchase meat can be an electoral measure. Political journalist Dave Wasserman has suggested that the 2012 election was a contest between “well-educated, Democratic-trending Whole Foods markets and down-home, Republican-trending Cracker Barrel outposts.”
Meatless political appeals
The “meatless” have long been framed as social and political threats, levied in discussions of whether they should be politically elevated or subordinated. Historically, Western norms during the 19th and 20th centuries held that to not eat meat is odd at best, and suspicious at worst.
In the late 1800s, colonialism in Asia was partially justified on the grounds that Asian men were but “effeminate rice eaters” who, according to 19th-century neurologist James Leonard Corning, lacked “the intellectual vigor of flesh-eating men.”
Negative appeals to veganism again flourished in 2019 after Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal,” a resolution proposing to combat climate change. Conservative senators like Joni Ernst and Marsha Blackburn attacked the environmentally progressive initiative as a “war on meat,” posing an existential threat to meat eaters and cattle farmers. Notably, the Green New Deal did not contain meat mandates. In the Green New Deal discussion, though, this hypothetical meat ban effectively functioned as metaphorical shortcut for progressive political overreach.
This demarcation is not confined to one political party. In a Democratic primary debate in 2019, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker – a vegan since 2014 – was asked by a debate moderator if, as president, he would demand Americans follow his diet. Booker, surprised by the personal question, said no. He did not win the nomination.
More meat, less elite
Meat, or lack thereof, has gathered more significance in the second Trump presidency via Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. Kennedy, who touts his “carnivore diet,” says he “only (eats) meat or fermented foods.” He has even modified the food pyramid – the Department of Agriculture’s visual nutrition guide – shifting red meat from a food to be consumed sparingly to a high dietary priority.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican-leaning states have banned cell-cultured meat, or meat produced in a lab, for not being “real” and, so, being dangerous. After signing a ban on cultured meat, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared that the bill represented a battle against the global elite and its “authoritarian goals.”
2026 and beyond
While the beef between Paxton and Talarico will likely resolve after the 2026 midterms, appeals to meat, meat eaters and meat-eating in U.S. political communication will not.
As available meat substitutes increase, economic burdens on ranchers rise and debates over the meat industry’s impact on climate change intensify, we expect meat’s culture war cachet to surge too.
“Tofu Talarico” is just one of what will be numerous examples of meat symbolizing what the future of the country, its leaders and its citizens should be.
S. Marek Muller, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Texas State University and David Rooney, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Wyoming
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.