By The Babylon Bee | Created at 2026-10-12 18:55:20 | Updated at 2026-10-12 19:37:06
44 minutes ago
AUSTIN, TX — Despite overwhelming evidence, a local fringe conspiracy theorist continued to insist that U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico wasn't insane.
The rumor of Talarico's sanity had found a foothold in certain corners of social media, with extremists latching on to out-of-context clips and fake news reports to back up their wild claims.
"I think he's pretty sane and level-headed," said Kevin Grant, without a single shred of evidence to back up his claim. "I've had people try to convince me otherwise and present all their arguments, but I don't know. I think Talarico might be very rational."
Experts said it was just further proof that some segments of the population simply will not accept reality.
"It just goes to show that people will literally believe anything," said local news correspondent Darren Keller. "The cognitive dissonance of accepting that your candidate is an unhinged lunatic is so uncomfortable that people will do anything to avoid it. They will disregard all of the clear public evidence of Talarico's psychosis and grab onto the most bizarre theories in order to stay in the comfort of their worldview."
Members of one online group dedicated to the wild theory that Talarico is of sound mind had reportedly compiled nearly 11 seconds of footage in which Talarico is not spewing deranged nonsense. "See, he's totally fine," said longtime Democrat Rachel Henson. "Plus, there's this recording I heard online of someone saying they talked to Talarico and he was lucid and rational. Case closed."
At publishing time, the man's conspiracy theory had suffered a devastating setback after Talarico held a press conference to address it.
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