What JD Vance did here was not only turn Trump's attack into a positive thing, but he also framed the issue as a populist "people against the powerful" theme that puts much of the political establishment of both parties in the "enemy forces" column. Yes, Pelosi is vile, but she had a lot of help from both party establishments in opening our borders for the sake of cheap labor, sending our industry to an enemy country for cheap imports, and fighting all attempts to strengthen the American working class.

Joe Swyers
12 hours ago
The following was written by Robert Teesdale decades ago.
I've not found it again on the net, yet. Maybe others here more adept at internet sleuthing
So I post it in full here. Please pass it along.
Maybe the censors got to it -- and you will see why when you read it.

Coming Trials
There are moments when one is chilled... when one feels the truth of a spoken word, or a gesture - or when one hears with the heart, and not merely with the imperfection of the ears.
Such a moment came to pass in my own life, many years ago.
It was a lingering summer in southern Ohio, hot and dusty and lazy in the dying afternoon. I sat in a small-town barbershop, having my hair cut and trading quiet conversation with the locals.
The conversation turned to hunting, and then to guns - and as always, to the inherent rights of our people which have always been held as a bulwark against the natural tyranny of Men.
We discussed the latest gun-control laws, and how they infringed upon those same rights. We spoke of the anger we each felt. Of the simple wrongness of it, and of the consequences of this progression.
Our words were carefully chosen - for even then, before the ascension of William Clinton to the presidency and the disgusting abrogations of freedom that followed - we were aware that such talk amongst the People was not approved of.
It was dangerous, we knew. Seditious. Militias ran amok, and the force of the law waited with eager anticipation to intervene.
Young and old, we sat there. Talking. Sharing our thoughts quietly... and asking each other where it was leading.
Someone said with a shake of the head, "I don't like where this is headed." We all nodded agreement... and then I sat in sorrowed fear as I heard the next words spoken.
An old man, sitting in a leather-and-steel chair by the entrance, leaned over and spat grimly into the dust of the Midwest that blew gently along the road outside. His words were cold, and contained a sad and unmistakable finality.
"It's coming," he said.
We all fell silent.
....

Our people are marching in the streets, demanding justice - and demanding that our rights be respected, lest they be defended by more than merely passionate arguments.
Men are no longer afraid to speak their minds. The power of fear that was held over those who dared to give voice to their patriotism has subsided... and now it is openly asked in our homes, in our shops and in our places of work.
What will happen when that line is crossed?
For there is no longer any question that it has been drawn... and no longer a question of whether to draw it was right.
In this day, when I speak to people and hear their words... when I look into their eyes and take their hands in my own - the question is no longer if revolution is possible, or if it could be done.
The questions now are how...
...and who will lead.
I fear for our nation.
For we stand at the brink. And those who bring us there, with a blind faith in their own special privilege and a dismissive contempt for the rights of the People - ignore the fearful resolve that burns within the breasts of millions of souls that will not acquiesce.
Our nation is not immune to civil war. It is not immune to the deadly and horrific strife of citizen against citizen... of brother against brother, of fathers leading sons against cousins.
There are ninety million firearm owners in America. Such a serpent should bear respecting... rather than used as a convenient scapegoat for the hypocritical lashes of those who seek to rule this nation.
And how close are we?
I see leaders arising. And rather than exhorting men to action, I see them working desperately to pacify.
I do not see them urging the loading of rifles... but rather a waiting, and a pleading for more patience and faith in the power of the vote to preserve our freedom.
I see them working to prevent bloodshed, not to instigate it. And this ominous sight fills me with foreboding.
We are not trying to create a revolution.
We are trying to stop one.
I hope that old man was wrong.
But in my heart, a sorrowed chill lingers.

There are ninety million firearm owners in America. Such a serpent should bear respecting... rather than used as a convenient scapegoat for the hypocritical lashes of those who seek to rule this nation.
And how close are we?
I see leaders arising. And rather than exhorting men to action, I see them working desperately to pacify.
I do not see them urging the loading of rifles... but rather a waiting, and a pleading for more patience and faith in the power of the vote to preserve our freedom.
I see them working to prevent bloodshed, not to instigate it. And this ominous sight fills me with foreboding.
We are not trying to create a revolution.
We are trying to stop one.
I hope that old man was wrong.
But in my heart, a sorrowed chill lingers.

This isn’t just about the election, though, but also about the changing nature between users — again, the product — and the online services we allow ourselves to be pimped out for. The disparities between the results for Trump and Harris simply highlight how stark the problem is.

Whether it’s Google or Facebook or Instagram, the initial premise of expanding easy access to information and apprising us of stories we might have otherwise missed has been largely destroyed. Google and Meta show us what they want us to see, not what we signed up to see, and it’s starting to turn people off. Maybe that’s a good thing, because most people need to spend more time in the real world. But when we’re trying to find a restaurant or information about voting or see pictures of a friend’s new landscaping or figure out how to get Elmer’s glue off the hardwood floors, burying those things under a mountain of nonsense makes us more likely to tune out.

Which is probably not just a good thing but a great thing — but initially the internet and social media were supposed to be about connecting us, about decreasing barriers to information. It would be nice if our tech overlords could remember what their initial goals were — in Google’s case, it was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” — and return to those ideals instead of pushing us toward full “Idiocracy.”

I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, though, particularly as Google itself deems such queries unworthy of answering.

I really don't see how you finesse this. Buttigieg is with the Harris campaign; one assumes "ready to win" is not some obscure gay sex act and refers to the 2024 election. Harris campaign items festoon the wall behind him. The people are so enthusiastic that it can only be a Harris campaign event headlined by Buttigieg.

All joking aside, there is no way this is not some level of violation of the Hatch Act. Either he's actively campaigning for Harris or giving the impression of actively campaigning for Harris. Both are illegal. The real question is if anyone in the federal government cares. My guess is they don't for all the obvious reasons. //

anon-2hhh
3 hours ago
That’s really cool that we have all these laws concerning government employees and electioneering. Too bad election laws don’t mean any more than immigration laws to Democrats. If only ‘no one is above the law’ were true.

Americans started their Sunday morning this week celebrating the fantastic accomplishment of the SpaceX team’s fifth Starship test launch, as the spacecraft’s 232-foot Falcon Super Heavy booster rocket returned to the launchpad and was “caught” by a pair of enormous mechanical arms nicknamed “Mechazilla.” //

John LeFevre @JohnLeFevre
·
The SpaceX Starship team that sent a skyscraper into space, and then caught it with giant chopsticks.

Meanwhile, Boeing's space program has 50,000 employees and stranded 2 astronauts in space.

But, at least they received a 100% DEI rating and the designation of “2022 Best… Show more
3:48 PM · Oct 13, 2024 //

This catch was one short moment for SpaceX and one critical moment for Americans. //

Unfortunately for SpaceX, part of its operations involves contending with innovation-killing bureaucrats, this time at the California Coastal Commission.

Apparently, they have denied permits to the company because commission members are unhappy with CEO Elon Musk’s comments on “X.”

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Incredibly inappropriate. What I post on this platform has nothing to do with a “coastal commission” in California!

Filing suit against them on Monday for violating the First Amendment.

The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole84
This is Political Discrimination
"California officials cite Elon Musk's politics in rejecting SpaceX launches"
1:52 AM · Oct 13, 2024. //

TargaGTS in reply to Sanddog. | October 13, 2024 at 8:41 pm
It’s at moments like this – pure Marxism on display in Kalifornia – to remind people that before Reagan signed the 1986 Amnesty Act, California was a reasonably reliable RED state, only voting for the Democrat presidential nominee a handful of times in the 20th century. They had 13 GOP governors and only THREE DNC governors in the 86-years of the 20th century, prior to passing that act. Then, in 1992 – the first year those who received amnesty were becoming eligible to vote – California only voted for DNC president & senators and eventually governors. Now, it’s tone off the most reliably blue state in the Union.

Illegal immigration is the Kryptonite to limited-government.

Judges 12:1-7 (ESV)

The word “shibboleth” comes from this passage in the Bible. It is a word that those in the tribe can say and others cannot.

Every group has words foreign to outsiders—words the others cannot say or will not say. These words set people apart as inside or outside the tribe.

In postmodern Marxist thought, shibboleths give power. The existing powerful people say things, and the way to reverse power is to shut them up and say new things. Get everyone saying the grass is blue and the sky is green, and pretty soon, the sane people are the ones who look crazy.

As I have written before, progressives exist on the left and right. They are about the acquisition and control of power, not ideas. Power is the only idea, and they will say and do anything to gain that power. Part of using that power is tribal control and identity. //

Here’s the tell that we are dealing with idol-worshipping progressives.

One of the very first thoughts uttered by these people was not for the care and concern of American citizens in harm’s way but for the potential to deny them power politically. They made it about Trump and the election. That was their primary reaction.

You need to understand that they don’t care about the truth. They are trying to separate the true believers from everyone else. If you are willing to embrace the absurd with a straight face, you’re on the inside. You can say shibboleth.

If you are unwilling to embrace it, you are on the outside. It is a very Marxist behavior.

They have no guiding ideology and no real principles. They want power. Like progressives on the left, the progressives on the right are willing to grow and wield government power to reward their friends and punish their enemies. And, increasingly, their enemies are those unwilling to side with the absurd idea that the government is conjuring hurricanes to steal elections.

This is, needless to say, unhealthy, and yes, again, this is a rightwing equivalent to the absurd leftwing progressive demands that we refer to girls as boys and, upon transition, retroactively embrace that Caitlyn Jenner always was. The pregnant girl in the movie Juno was actually played by a boy all along. //

Romans 1:21-23 (ESV)

What you need to understand is that the dramatic shift towards foolishness, lust, and mythology does not know earthly ideological parameters. It will happen across the spectrum of people, and we are watching it happen in real-time, including here, as people have given up the worship of God for power. They seek a political savior for spiritual problems and what they’ve done is embrace the spirit of the age as they reject the Holy Spirit.

All of life is theological, whether you acknowledge it or not. When a person gives up the sound theology of God and His sovereignty, they begin to utter the shibboleths of the stupid. As Paul warned Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” 2 Timothy 4:3 (ESV)

I led candidates through hours a day of soullessly dialing up rich people and begging them for money. Not only do candidates spend most of their time talking to the rich, but the only path to elected office is to be rich, or to know lots of rich people.

Here's the thing about donors: They have niche policy issues they care about that seldom reflect the needs of people back home. Democrats love to decry money in politics when it comes to the Koch brothers or Elon Musk, but the billionaires who support Democrats are given a total pass and have a huge influence over policy.

At first, I naively thought the system was broken. But now I realize, it isn't broken; it's doing what it was designed to do, which is to keep working class people from true representation. That is the point, a feature, not a bug. //

But even the progressives are part of the problem now. They were once focused on policies that improved people's lives, promising to be unbought and uncompromisable. But after the summer of 2020, that rhetoric all but faded away. They've become compromised by the social justice language and divisive identity politics that now dominates the entire Democratic ecosystem. //

Here's the sad truth: The Democratic Party has lost its way entirely. They mostly speak to the college educated, the urban and affluent, in their language. Their tone is condescending and paternalistic. They peddle giveaways to the college-educated like student loan forgiveness plans that disproportionately help their base, snubbing the majority of the country without a four-year degree, and then offer no tangible plans for true reform. //

the temptation to throw up one’s hands and say, “They’ll never listen, so why should I bother,” must be resisted. People can and do see the error of their ways. We on the right cannot take examples such as Barker’s independently discovered embrace of the truth as a declaration that all we need to do is stand aside and wait until others on the left feel the heat from the dumpster fire of their own making. We must keep putting our message, and with it ourselves, out there. //

emptypockets
2 hours ago
"That is the point, a feature, not a bug."

And she finally realized that in spite of...
"When someone gains clarity, we must meet moments such as these with grace and truth, a forgiving spirit coupled with applied knowledge explaining why there is no shame in being fooled when all you receive is half of the story all of the time."

That italicized part is a major reason the "democrat party" got so far distant from what they've always said they represented...even if very poorly with bad policies.

Another "feature" and not a "bug" to the DNC PTBs. I call it the Narrative™...the small parts of reality the Left can use to advance their own agenda as long as no one hears "the rest of the story" and their censorship ensured few did. Until Musk bought twitter and freed the bird.

It is very hard for a person to admit they've been duped, even in these times where claiming victimhood is rampant. But that is only alloweed by the left when the "victim" is a victim of Rs...not of the Left.

Mark Twain — 'It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.'

Cafeblue32
3 hours ago
Dear undecided voters,

If Democrats have to tack to the right and pretend to be conservative to get elected, why not just vote for the right to begin with and be done with it?

Hope this helps,
Sincerely,
The rest of of us. //

IdeClair
3 hours ago
Bernie Sanders summed it up : Dems are saying whatever it takes to get elected..but they don't mean it.. //

reddotbluestate
3 hours ago
Dems lie. Water is wet. The sun is hot.

The argument's premise is that Trump left Biden and Kamala with no plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan. The fact is that Trump signed the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban on February 29, 2020. For graduates of Baltimore public schools and others challenged by mathematics, that is 534 days before the Kabul airlift began. If there was no plan for the withdrawal, that really isn't the direct responsibility of the guy who left office 207 days prior to the event. The responsibility for planning the operation lay with the Defense Department, specifically within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

If Biden didn't have a plan, then it is the fault of service leaders who refused to do their duty and, in this telling of events, sat on their hands and refused to plan for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (During the big drawdown of the Army after the USSR went belly up, the Army refused to plan for a force reduction because it was felt that if word got out that we were planning, then the political people would think we were fine with the idea and make us do it. If we didn't plan, the reasoning went, we might not have to do it. I can see the same logic in effect in executing the end of our adventure in Afghanistan.) That would mean the very people blaming Trump for the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan include some of the people who were responsible for that withdrawal.

Thanks to the efforts of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we know there was a plan, but Biden and the "last person" in the room overruled it. //

The real threat to our democracy are military officers who trade on their rank to tell lies in the name of partisan politics. //

Mike Ford
17 hours ago edited
One of AFNN’s best writers, COL Jack Tobin (rest his soul) wrote the initial plan well before Biden came on the scene….

It called for the use of Bagram as the evac base and its subsequent retention.

It also followed standard NEO doctrine whereby you evac the noncombatants and THEN extract troops.

You damned sure don’t put your evac point in a downtown version of Dien Ben Phu //

Hoover the Great
18 hours ago
This debacle really shows why we need to take a meat cleaver to the US army. And by that, I don't just mean replacing personnel, I mean reducing footprint and eliminating force and positions. Reduce the size by maybe 80-90%. As Eisenhower stated, a massive standing army like we have does not make America safer.

ECoolidge19 Hoover the Great
17 hours ago
I saw a post on RS sometime ago, it listed the number of 4 star Generals during WW 2 compared to now. It was like 1-8. I forget exactly but I remember being surprised. Sounds like a good starting point. At minimum, you don't fire but just put a freeze on hiring new //

Hoover the Great anon-x1lc
2 hours ago
There is no security benefit from maintaining a massive standing army like we have now. Or if there is one, it does not remotely approach the cost of it, both monetary cultural and spiritual. That position is essentially the one held by President and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Dwight Eisenhower.

We built this military machine after WWII. Before that, we had a skeleton military that we would quickly put the meat and muscles onto if we needed to fight a war. We never lost a war with that model. Since we built this military machine, the military's record is more mixed. That spans several decades, so is not just the result of bad people in leadership. It's the system itself.

David K
6 hours ago edited
RFK Jr understands the basics of the Reagan 80/20 rule: i.e., "The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor." Never Trumpers have the Reagan Rule backwards and support Democratic candidates that have less than 20% agreement with their so-called "True Conservative" values and they hate Trump and MAGA supporters even thought they arguably have more than 80% policy agreement with them. Unlike these Never Trumpers, RFK Jr isn't taking his ball and going home in a hissy fit, but following the Reagan 80/20 Rule. Similarly, Trump understands that 100% political alignment with the majority of voters is an impossible dream. He also understands that he and RFK Jr don't need to be in complete agreement for each of them to get their best possible outcome in the 2024 election. Like life, politics is not a strict zero-sum, all-or-nothing game.

etba_ss David K
2 hours ago
These people endorsing Harris to "save conservatism/democracy/the republic" are lying. They don't really believe that. They just hate Trump. Just like the left didn't believe Dick Cheney was "literally Hitler". As soon as he turns a trick for them, they like him again. The left thinks like Voldomort, both being pure evil, that there is no good or evil, only power. Only evil claims that.

Let's also acknowledge people like Dick Cheney hate us. They tolerated us when we knew our place, sat down, shut up and let them run the country. Since that gig is up, they expose themselves. They don't agree with us 80% of the time. That's why they hate us. They agree with Harris closer to 80% of the time than they do with us. They just want to funnel favors to a different set of friends. They are all for power, forever war, globalism and elitism. If they just hated Trump, they wouldn't also be campaigning against Ted Cruz. They wouldn't hate Ron DeSantis too.

These are the people who hated Reagan. Then when he got power and was so popular, they pretended they were like him. Reagan also spent a lot of money on defense, which lined their pockets. Reagan was winning the Cold War. This isn't 1980 anymore. There is no USSR. China is a real threat, but we are doing next to nothing about them. We are too busy meddling in everything else in the world to get serious about the real threat.

Over at Newsweek, Gad Saad wrote an incredible piece detailing this phenomenon:

It's this peripheral, emotive route of persuasion that the Harris campaign has embraced with the "positive vibes" campaign rooted in joy, excitement, and fun. Her managers are willfully hijacking your decision-making process by ensuring that you focus only on your affective, peripheral system.

It's deeply cynical, for the obvious reason that when selecting the leader of the free world, you should be engaging your cognitive system. A rational voter should evaluate the respective positions of the two candidates on fiscal policy, immigration policy, border security, foreign policy, criminal justice policy, commitment to the First and Second Amendments, the tension between the rights of biological women versus trans women (biological males), and their stance on meritocracy versus diversity, inclusion, and equity.

And yet, the great majority of voters are utterly oblivious about these issues, and prefer to love or hate a given candidate based on irrelevant affective processing. //

The Harris campaign doesn't want you thinking too hard about it. Don't explore the issues and really think about the solutions. Just feel the vibes, man. Just let the joy in and take it easy. Let it take you away. //

The Harris campaign is a lot more like a drug pusher in this regard, much like many a psychologist and back alley dealers are today. Feeling anxious? Take this pill. Feeling depressed. This prescription medication will give you the sensation of a normal life back. It's all just too much? Smoke this. Inject this right into your veins and you'll feel like you're flying. //

It's a dangerous thing to believe a politician who talks more about smiling than about policy. As the late great George Carlin once said:

"When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley. Smiley." //

Raoul Bilbao
an hour ago
I know of another leftist group that sold "Happiness" back in the 1930s and 40s..................

Louis Rukeyser's Ghost Raoul Bilbao
8 minutes ago
Oh yeah. Leo Reisman and His Orchestra singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" pushing FDR. Great point! //

anon-1l9q
an hour ago
Harris is selling the wrong religion. There's a better one that has joy unspeakable, and full of glory

This using the United States Supreme Court to litigate elections should never have become a thing. We can blame former Vice President Al Gore for opening that door to that. Norah O'Donnell and the Brown Jackson are assuming the 2024 election will be contested and that SCOTUS will be the deciding factor. So rich. They are setting the narrative and the playing field.

The Democrats have tried to keep left-wing third party candidates off the November ballot. //

It’s curious. The same Democratic Party that has feverishly tried to keep leftist third-party presidential candidates off November’s ballot is now fighting like hell to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on.

A new report is shedding some light on why Walz has been so confined, and it's both telling and hilarious.

What about Tim? One of the issues that Harris world is currently working to address is how to deploy running mate TIM WALZ in the media. The danger in sending him out to do big solo interviews is that he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue. As someone pointed out to us last night, Harris talks about the “opportunity economy,” but if Walz were asked to define it, would he know how?

Think about that. Kamala Harris' policy positions are so nebulous and undefined that her own running mate doesn't have a grasp of where she stands. This is a presidential ticket that has been together for a month, and Walz still can't be trusted to do interviews without possibly contradicting her. If this were a Saturday Night Live skit, what would be different?

Here's the thing, though. Kamala Harris also doesn't have a grasp of where she stands. There's a reason her website still doesn't include a policy platform despite the Democratic National Convention having concluded. //

anon-24tf 2 hours ago

This reminds of something I learned years ago.
Strong leaders want strong subordinates to help fill in when needed. Weak leaders want weak subordinates so they won’t feel threatened. I don’t think there is better illustration of this than Trump/Vance vs. Harris/Walz.

3.14159 anon-24tf 2 hours ago

Obama/Biden. Biden/Harris.

anon-7iuo anon-24tf 39 minutes ago

Type A people hire Type A people. Type B people hire Type C people.

You know, Bobby I think, probably, that's why he had such tremendous influence on the childrens' lives — he never tried to impose his own worldview on them. He did it by example. //

What an interesting observation from the one person who likely knew him best. RFK never tried to impose his worldview on his children, but to show them by example — things that mattered to him, such as the wellbeing of children.

Certainly, none of us can speak for a man who's been gone over 56 years now. Not even his children — though one might note that RFK Jr. was 14 when his father died, while Kerry was only 9. Not even his wife can truly say what he would have thought of his son — his namesake — bucking the party so closely associated with their family in the name of championing free speech, ending war, and fighting for children's health.

But I do think there's an argument to be made that he'd prefer they find a way to love one another, in spite of their differences. One suspects their mother — who's still living at 96, by the way — might feel the same.

For instance, being a third-party candidate on a debate stage alongside Republicans and Democrats is borderline impossible thanks to rules that were created through a group founded by both Republicans and Democrats. I wrote of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 2016 and how it effectively pushed out the League of Women Voters to seize control of the debate stage:

The organization itself was founded in 1987 by a bipartisan Republican/Democrat effort, and has run the debates ever since. //

Before the CPD, the debates were run by the League of Women Voters from 1976 to 1984. The League withdrew when Republicans and Democrats made a deal that would give them full control over the debates, and how they were run.

Nancy Neuman, then head of the League, called the deal “outrageous,” and noted that the Democrats and Republicans wanted to control the questioners, composition of the audience, press access, and more. All of this was done behind closed doors. By the time the deal was done, the League was presented with 16 pages of non-negotiable rules for the debates.

The League departed with a statement that called out exactly what the dual parties were doing and remains accurate to this day:

“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter,” League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.

“It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions,” Neuman said. “The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

Even Walter Cronkite called it an "unconscionable fraud." //

No matter how insane you might think the person is, they deserve a fair shot at winning the people's affections. The rules should not be weighted against them, and the other parties should not be able to manipulate rules to keep them from reaching the people.

It's my honest opinion that a two-party system is incredibly dangerous and limiting. If America's economic system has taught us anything, it's that competition brings out the best in people and the best people overall. Yet, we're currently tied to a dual-party system so filled to the brim with corruption that sometimes it's hard to know where one party begins and the other ends.

“No, not at all,” Vance told a Fox News reporter in an interview that aired Sunday. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”

“Look, the price of admission — meaning, the price of getting to serve the people of this country — is the Democrats are going to attack us with everything that they have. I think it’s an honor,” Vance continued.

“As Harry Truman once said, ‘if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen,’” he said.

The fact that Democrats even went with this strategy reveals a remarkable inability to read the room. If you think men can get pregnant, dress up in explicit costumes, wear African garb when you’re a white woman, and call other people “weird,” then perhaps you might consider taking a look in the mirror.

The reality is that there is weirdness in each political movement. Indeed, one has to be at least a little weird to run for office. But when parts of your political party resemble a Ringling Bros. circus, it is not a good idea to call other people “weird,” especially when social media is a thing.

As America prepares for November’s presidential election, the fight for votes will inevitably intensify.

But as conservative commentator Megan Basham explains in her new book, “Shepherds For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded The Truth For A Leftist Agenda” (Broadside) — and in an interview with The Post — nowhere will the campaign be more fiercely fought than in the battle for the one of the most powerful voting blocs in the country: evangelicals.

A culture reporter for the Daily Wire and former editor at Evangelical publication World Magazine, Basham reveals in “Shepherds For Sale” how “progressive power brokers” are targeting not just churches but Christian media, universities and even entire denominations in a bid to force their hands when it comes to dealing with culture war flash-points like abortion, LGBTQ rights and climate change. //

“Look at nearly any issue that represents a key priority for progressives, and you will find that even when all other major demographics have signed on, Christians, and evangelicals in particular, represent the most formidable roadblock,” she says. //

Basham maintains that in return for toeing a more left-wing line on key issues — as well as reinterpreting or even eschewing scripture — many church leaders have received everything from praise to prestige, career progression to significant amounts of cash, selling out Christianity in the process.

“Evangelicals don’t always win at the ballot box, but in most regions of the country, they always present a massive hurdle to leftist power grabs,” writes Basham. //

A significant aspect of the left’s ability to infiltrate the Church is the existence of what Basham calls the “Eleventh Commandment,” namely: Thou shalt not criticize church leaders.

“What the Eleventh Commandment has meant in practice is that even as prominent pastors and theologians have spent the last few years accommodating every sort of secular, progressive influence, critical or even cautioning voices have been slow to respond [to the challenge],” she says.

J.P. Cooney cultivated a politically toxic environment, disseminated baseless conspiracy theories, and engaged in unprofessional conduct, a report says. //

Cooney is mentioned (as the “Fraud and Public Corruption Section Chief”) a whopping 394 times in the 85-page report released from the Justice Department’s inspector general on July 24.