Taco 'Bout an Overreaction: The Right's Spicy Take on Tim Walz's Mild Joke

From M&Ms to tacos: How the right manufactures controversy to keep its audience engaged.

Last week, the Harris-Walz campaign released a video featuring Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in a casual conversation at Aretha's Jazz Cafe in Detroit. The video, a slickly produced 10-minute conversation designed to showcase the ticket's chemistry and relatability, sparked predictable right-wing outrage. The only question was what portion of the video the right was going to act outraged about.

At the top of the conversation, Walz admitted to enjoying "white guy tacos," explaining they consisted of "pretty much ground beef and cheese." When Harris playfully asked about adding flavor, Walz quipped, "Black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota."

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This self-deprecating joke about Midwestern culinary blandness quickly became fodder for right-wing outrage, with conservative commentators accusing Walz of "anti-white racism" and self-flagellation. What was meant to be a lighthearted moment of campaign humanization instead became the latest battleground in America's culture wars.

The right’s flaming hot take.

The conservative response to Walz's taco comment was swift and, unsurprisingly, spicy. Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire tweeted, "See, folks, it's funny that white people hate spices! Not racist at all! Just funny!" He went on to argue that Europeans' historical involvement in the spice trade proved their love for seasoning.

Shapiro's colleague, Matt Walsh, took it a step further, describing the exchange as "blatant anti-white racism." He posed a hypothetical: "Imagine if Donald Trump said that a 'black guy taco' was made with fried chicken and watermelon. Nuclear meltdown." This false equivalence ignores the long history of racist stereotypes associated with those foods, as well as the fact that Walz was poking fun of himself and making a lighthearted joke at the expense of a group he was a part of, not smearing an outside group.

Even Senator Ted Cruz felt compelled to weigh in, bizarrely tweeting, "Hispanics are not tacos." This non-sequitur seemed to miss the point entirely, as neither Harris nor Walz had made any claims about Hispanic cuisine or identity.

The outrage machine kicked into high gear when Mike Cernovich, known for promoting conspiracy theories, accused Walz of lying about his spice tolerance. Cernovich dug up a 2016 recipe for Walz's award-winning "Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish," which included mild green chilies and chili powder. This "gotcha" moment conveniently ignored the fact that hotdish, a Midwestern staple, is hardly known for its heat.

Fox & Friends co-host Will Cain questioned Harris's taco expertise, while New York Post columnist Miranda Devine went so far as to describe Walz as "the Uncle Tom of white rural males." The hyperbole reached a fever pitch, with conservatives painting Walz's self-deprecating humor as a betrayal of his race and region.

This overwrought reaction reveals more about the right's hair-trigger outrage reflex than it does about Walz's culinary preferences. It demonstrates how easily a moment of levity can be twisted into a culture war talking point, and how desperate some commentators are to find evidence of "anti-white racism" in the most innocent of exchanges.

The right's recipe for rage.

Right-wing media seems to have an insatiable appetite for outrage, no matter how trivial the cause. Whether it's lamenting the de-sexualization of the Green M&M, railing against comic book storylines featuring a "pregnant Joker" or a bisexual Superman, throwing months-long tantrums over Bud Light's advertising choices, or directing unintelligible fury at the estate of Dr. Seuss, conservative pundits appear to be in a constant state of high alert for the next low-stakes controversy to inflame their base. Why?

I never knew so many people wanted to bang the Green M&M.

The answer lies in the very nature of modern conservative media and its business model. Outrage is a powerful tool for engagement, and in the attention economy of the internet age, engagement equals profit and influence. By constantly stoking the fires of indignation, right-wing outlets keep their audience in a state of perpetual agitation, primed to consume more content and, crucially, to view the world through an us-versus-them lens.

This manufactured outrage serves several purposes. It creates a sense of shared grievance among conservatives, reinforcing group identity and solidarity. When Ben Shapiro rails against "white guy tacos" as anti-white racism, he's not just commenting on a joke; he's signaling to his audience that their very identity is under attack.

It provides a convenient distraction from more substantive issues. It's far easier to get worked up about Tim Walz's taco preferences than to engage with complex policy debates or acknowledge systemic problems. This "outrage inflation" trivializes political discourse, reducing it to a series of culture war skirmishes over increasingly absurd topics.

Beyond that, it feeds into a narrative of conservative victimhood. By framing every joke, product change, or casting decision as an assault on traditional values, right-wing media can position conservatives as an embattled minority fighting against a hostile "woke" culture. This persecution complex is a powerful motivator for political action and donations.

The constant stream of faux controversies creates a boy-who-cried-wolf effect. When everything is outrageous, nothing is. This makes it easier to dismiss genuine concerns and criticisms as just another example of "cancel culture" or "political correctness run amok."

The "white guy tacos" incident is a perfect example of this in action. A harmless joke about food becomes, in the hands of right-wing commentators, evidence of a grand conspiracy against white identity. It's a tempest in a taco shell that reveals the true ingredients of conservative media's secret sauce: a dash of fear, a pinch of resentment, and a heaping helping of manufactured outrage.