Liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg argued that former “Saturday Night Live” star Bowen Yang and his podcast co-host Matt Rogers “were right” to criticize Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s, D-Texas, Senate campaign on their “Las Culturistas” show earlier this month.
In a Friday column for the Times, Goldberg noted that while the controversy surrounding Yang and Rogers’ comments may seem trivial, “it merits attention” because “the underlying issue could cost Democrats the Senate this fall.”
The two comedians received backlash after Rogers urged listeners not to donate to Crockett’s campaign, criticizing politicians who make everything “about themselves.” Yang agreed with Rogers, but both apologized days later for the remarks.
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“Anytime a politician is making it too obviously about themselves, I’m already done,” Rogers said. “And don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett. Do not do it.”
As noted by Goldberg, Yang and Rogers faced pushback from Crockett and her supporters, who accused the hosts of racism and misogyny.
“But Rogers and Yang were right to be skeptical of Crockett, who almost certainly cannot win a general election in Texas,” the columnist contended. “Those who disagree have every right to criticize them, and me. But progressives shouldn’t let a retrograde style of internet discourse inhibit them from pointing out the obvious.”
Goldberg asserted that “it’s not race and gender that make Crockett a bad candidate,” but rather, her “theory about how Democrats can win Texas is wrong.”
She said that while she can understand why “lots of Democrats adore Crockett,” she also sees why others are turned off by her political style.
“Some of her insults are in bad taste — she has called Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, ‘Hot Wheels’ — but it’s easy to see why Democrats who feel brutalized by Trump want champions willing to go low,” Goldberg wrote.
Aside from Crockett’s sometimes brash style, the columnist also made the case that her opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, D-Texas, has proven he has the ability to do something that Crockett has yet to accomplish — turn a red seat blue.
She noted that, by contrast, Crockett has “always represented a deep blue district” and has yet to run a “seriously contested general election campaign.”
According to Goldberg, another barrier to Crockett’s candidacy is that she’s been “openly contemptuous not just of Trump but also of the Texans who cast their ballots for him.” The columnist cited the Texas congresswoman’s comments to Vanity Fair in which she described Latinos who voted for Trump as having a “slave mentality” as evidence.
“Rather than focusing on peeling off Trump voters, Crockett is staking her candidacy on a promise to motivate Texans who rarely, if ever, go to the polls. ‘The theory of my case has always been that we could expand the electorate,’ she told a Texas news station last month. ‘We could get people that normally don’t participate in politics to be excited about getting involved,’” Goldberg wrote. “This theory is dubious.”
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Wrapping up her thoughts, Goldberg argued that if “people hesitate to make the case against Crockett because they fear online pile-ons, only Republicans benefit,” handing the right an advantage when chaos on social media is weighing heavily on the MAGA movement.
“But social media is much bigger than X, and the ‘Las Culturistas’ episode shows that bad-faith social justice arguments still have a lot of power on the internet. The fault for this lies not with the people making those arguments but with those who let themselves be cowed by them,” she wrote.
Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
