Call it Schroedinger’s First Amendment crisis – James Talarico’s interview last week on CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert was either the victim of what is increasingly looking like state-run media, or pure hokum played up to drum up ratings, or in this case, Youtube views.
The narrative initially put forth was that the network barred Colbert from airing the interview with Senate hopeful Talarico after being threatened by Brendan Carr, who is the current Trump-appointed FCC head. The message to Colbert reportedly came by way of CBS lawyers.
Now imagine if this scenario is, in fact, true. Imagine, if you will, if Obama’s administration would have threatened Fox News against airing an interview with a Republican congress-critter – authoritarianism through and through.
The 36-year-old Talarico, who had served in the state House of Representatives, is currently vying for the Democratic ticket nod for a Senate seat long held by John Cornyn. Talarico has trailed fellow Democrat Jasmine Crockett in polls until now, and since the Colbert incident, it was reported that he raised more than $2.5 million.
Carr had said in January that he was considering requiring TV talk show hosts to offer equal airtime for political candidates. The equal time provision, of course, is that long-standing rule overseen by the FCC requiring broadcasters to provide equal opportunities for airtime to candidates in an election and was created to prevent broadcasters and organizations from favoring one candidate over another.
The network insisted that it merely shared a legal perspective on the matter and did not block the broadcast of the interview. Whatever the reality, part of the attention gathered was likely due to Colbert’s own looming cancellation, which smacked of political convenience.
For those who actually took to YouTube to watch the allegedly 86’d from broadcast interview, Talarico’s message should resonate with those who care about the long-standing separation of church and state, and the hypocrisy of Big Government railing against “cancel culture,” yet exercising in that very thing.
Talarico, who is a Presbyterian seminary student, has spoken at length, and earnestly, about his faith, but on the Colbert interview, he made the distinction between his faith and his understanding of the Scriptures versus the more performative, political talking point-laden aspects of the Religious Right.
“Jesus gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor, and there was no exception to that second commandment,” Talarico told Colbert.
He went on to talk about his fight in the state’s lower chamber against the requirement to post the Ten Commandments in schools, and hit a nail squarely on its head with his point of why the boundary between the church and state should be maintained: when that separation is eroded, the church is susceptible to political influence, and, as he put it, gets too “cozy” with power, thus losing its ministerial voice.
Talarico, with his pastor’s haircut and squeaky-clean look, seems an unlikely presence to make anti-Christian nationalist sentiments his stock-and-trade, and I’m sure that many folks reading this would ignore the man simply because of his political alignment with the cult that sports the blue and a donkey avatar, but despite his voting record, the message is refreshing to hear in this day and age when faith and democracy have become distorted.
The Christian nationalist worldview is an insistence that America was founded as, and must remain, a specifically Christian nation, but our Constitution clearly makes a case for religious liberty, via the First Amendment’s two core clauses: the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause, which, respectively, prohibit the government from establishing a state religion and protects the right to practice faith without govt. intrusion.
I’ve listened to a good many interviews with Talarico prior to the Colbert one, and I’ve been impressed with his moral clarity, which cuts through the noise and false dichotomy that tries to paint an opposition to Christian nationalism as opposition to Jesus’s teachings. Religious freedom is strongest when belief is voluntary, and not enforced by law or any kind of cultural dominance.
Who knows if Talarico is the real deal or not? I’m not in the mindset of trusting any politician these days, but the guy does come across as a breath of fresh air. If anything, his words should serve as a warning. History has shown us time and again where a fusion of religious identity and political power lead, and it ain’t good. When the government claims to speak for God, it won’t tolerate any disagreements for long.
Whatever the truth is behind the interview’s lack of presence on the original television broadcast of Colbert’s show, it is easy to see why many of those in power today probably would not have wanted such a message available to the masses.
Chris Edwards is editor of the Tyler County Booster, a sister newspaper in the Polk County Publishing Group. He can be reached at cedwards@polkcountypublishing.com.
