Christian men: God wants us to be meek, not weak



On August 15, two Americans on a UFC fight card said the quiet part out loud.

Prelim winner Tresean Gore had just secured a decision that cost him two front teeth. With a mouth full of blood, he told Joe Rogan that he no longer smoked weed, drank, or watched porn and that Jesus Christ had saved his life and soul.

King Solomon foresaw the day of physical failure: 'If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.'

On the main card, winner Jalin Turner’s first statement to Rogan was also a profession of faith.

Professing athletes are not new. Tim Tebow, Harrison Butker, and the Oklahoma women’s softball team have all said the same thing in public: Prowess and its rewards are not solely their own doing.

Toga-clad therapist

Gore and Turner moved us for a narrower reason. During our Bible study, we had been talking about the decline of masculinity among Christian men. When those men surrender responsible, loyal, trustworthy headship — as Scripture defines it under God the Father and His Son — instead of becoming humble, they disappear, leaving a hole that the spirit of the age fills.

American Christian men have forgotten, or were never taught, that their King was the strongest man who ever walked the earth, physically and spiritually. Jesus is the pattern for both. Following Him should produce men who pursue strength of body as well as strength of soul. Too many church leaders have taught the opposite. They have offered a Jesus who is only mild, never mighty: a toga-clad therapist who affirms all and judges none. That is not the Christ of the Gospels, and it is not the men who preceded and followed Him.

Other than Christ, no man in the Bible is without sin. God shows us these men so we will learn that Christianity requires faith, repentance, and obedience — not a clean record. Adam shifted blame. Samson and David yielded to lust. David’s sin was worse than just appetite: he deceived, murdered, and committed adultery. Scripture hides none of it.

Restored to strength

It also does not hide what these men were and what they did. Blind Samson pulled down a Philistine temple with his hands. David defended his flock against wild animals, then dropped Goliath with a stone. His elite guard, the Gibborim — Josheb, Eleazar, Shammah, Abishai, Benaiah — were remembered in 2 Samuel because they could fight. Four times God tells Joshua to be “strong and courageous.” Joshua then defeats 31 kings on the way to the promised land. God preserved Moses’ vigor at 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7); fed Elijah strength for the desert road (1 Kings 19:7-8); and promised through Isaiah that those who wait on the Lord will not faint (Isaiah 40:29-31).

The God of mercy and love is the same God who trained David’s hands for war and his fingers for battle and helped him bend a bow of bronze (Psalms 18:32-34 and 144:1). In 1 Peter 4:11, the apostle directs all who serve God to do so with the strength that God provides. All these men knew sin, fear, and confusion. Faith restored them to strength and courage for God's glory. It did not restore them to softness.

RELATED: Do you follow a diluted Jesus — or the full-strength one?

Don Bartletti/Getty Images

The weight of the cross

Then there is Jesus. He walked the land for three years knowing His own people would reject Him and kill Him, and He finished the work. The distances of that ministry are measured in thousands of miles, on foot.

On His last day, He was beaten and scourged, and He marched the Via Dolorosa under a patibulum that likely weighed 65 to 110 pounds. He fell because of pain and blood loss that would put most modern men on the ground before the first step. The contrast is not cute. A church that cannot tell the difference between meekness and weakness will baptize the second and call it discipleship.

We would rather live in the world Jesus describes: among people who worship without shame, who speak of Him as plainly as Tresean Gore and Jalin Turner did, and who pursue the holiness He demands. He is not playing. In the wedding parable of Matthew 22, the man without the garment of faith and repentance is bound and cast into the outer darkness. That is the same Lord who walked those miles.

'Act like men'

So the question is not whether Christian men should be kind. It is whether they will be men. No more porn. No more anesthesia by weed and liquor. No more sexual chaos. Less devotion to entertainment that mocks the faith and more time in churches where men teach what Paul taught: Put your house in order (1 Tim. 3:1-5; Titus 1:5-9 and 2:1-2 and 6-8), and “be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13).

Drawing on the Old Testament, Jesus does tell His followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27, from Proverbs 24:17 and 25:21 and Exodus 23:4-5).

That command is real. It covers the neighbor who hates you, the official who slanders you, even the man who would harm you. It is not a mediation tip. It is imitation of the Father. It is also not a ban on strength. Prayer for a human enemy does not mean pretending he is harmless, refusing to restrain him, or talking to Satan as if he were your neighbor. Scripture never asks anyone to treat the devil as a prayer partner. It does ask men to resist him, to protect the innocent, and still not let hatred become their creed.

King Solomon foresaw the day of physical failure: “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small” (Proverbs 24:10). The next two verses are the gut punch. If you stand by while people are led away to death, God sees, and He will weigh your cowardice.

This is a day of adversity. American Christian men will come up big or small. They will find their strength in God, or they will keep drawing upon a smaller Jesus who demands nothing of their bodies and their nerve. They should pick up where Tresean Gore and Jalin Turner left off: Believe and profess the truth with blood still in your mouth, and then live as if the truth has hands.

Shane and Joe show us what real activism looks like



It all started on a patch of waterfront property in New York, right next to the East River.

The latest wave of perceived liberal activism made its way to Joe Rogan and Shane Gillis' ears through the sage wisdom of a traveling entertainer: They were tearing apart a park.

'The park should be defended!'

Instead of a sign-wielding mask-wearer debating the merits of universal basic income and banning landlords, the news came from comedian Ari Shaffir. Typically, Shaffir is telling tales about getting an exorcism in South America or doing stand-up comedy in China, but this time he was looking to stop the destruction of a beloved New York City landmark.

Shaffir told Rogan and Gillis about Manhattan's East River Park, land that had been torn apart by floods from Hurricane Sandy. In response, New York City officials planned to raze the park, add eight feet of dirt, and rebuild the park anew on top, all in the name of flood prevention.

Activists agreed with Shaffir and said removing access to the 57 acres next to the water was unfair to locals.

Gillis did not agree.

"You're not defending parks!" he said, badgering Shaffir. "F**k that park!"

"The park should be defended!" Rogan chimed in.

From that moment, "Protect Our Parks" was born: an impromptu news panel with no preparation and no censorship, addressing actual issues.

Averaging between 2 million and 5 million views per episode on YouTube alone, the series of podcasts has not only become one of Rogan's most popular iterations, but it has become a battle of political perspectives.

RELATED: CANCEL-PROOF: Tim Dillon's big, gay get-out-of-jail-free card

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

Across 17 episodes and counting, Gillis brings his Bud Light-American viewpoint, backed by historical knowledge. This is often at odds with Rogan's "question everything" mantra, while Shaffir offers real-world traveler's experience.

The fourth member of the group, Mark Normand, is admittedly usually on substances and just looking to add punch lines. He's not lacking in intellect; he just picks his punches.

The resulting conversations within the group often turn out to be newsmakers because of the sheer number of viewers each comedian represents. Normand has a quarter-million podcast subscribers on YouTube alone and another 2 million+ social media followers. Shaffir has well over a million combined, too. Add those to Gillis' and Rogan's reach, and each episode is dwarfing network news.

Most recently, discussed topics ranged from immigration and trans athletes to Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War. The opinions are unpredictable.

When Rogan talks about how the WNBA "can't define what a woman is," or when Gillis declares America needs "somebody who’s willing to abuse their executive power," progressive minds will not be surprised.

But when Shaffir says the U.K. "hate[s] immigrants so hard," viewers understand this isn't an echo chamber.

RELATED: Pat McAfee refused to fold, and ESPN paid up. There's a lesson there for young men.

In fact, the show is far closer to a real discussion than anything cable news could hope to accomplish. No filters or network notes means Gillis can counter anti-American hearsay from Rogan while Normand criticizes Israel to Shaffir, even if viewers label the show as "compromised."

Critics have further attempted to demonize the podcasts for having hypocritical moments, or "effortlessly" forgiving "racism" by even having these discussions.

But others have seen the forest through the trees; friends don't let each other get away with everything. One video, seen 250,000 times, compiled Gillis' opposition to Rogan's political views. This is not exactly partisan programming.

Progressives should get on board with protecting our parks. If they want to chant, ad nauseum, "Show me what democracy looks like!" (and they do), perhaps they will get their answer by watching.

As for East River Park; the city agreed to reconstruct the area in parts to allow access to different sections at different times. However, the project that started in 2021 is still unfinished to this day.

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Joe Rogan Still Holds a Major Grudge Against This Person Who He Thinks Should Be in Jail
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Joe Rogan Still Holds a Major Grudge Against This Person Who He Thinks Should Be in Jail

The video of Tony Hinchcliffe & Snoop Dogg they forgot to delete — it changes everything



When the vultures came for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, they thought there was a lot of meat on the bone.

Circling from above, media watchdogs and political operatives thought they had him, and Trump, dead to rights.

'We'll change the narrative.'

But they forgot something.

It was October 27, 2024, when Hinchcliffe appeared at Donald Trump's campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. Jokes about Puerto Rico being a floating pile of garbage were deemed racist and insulting.

For weeks, the joke police wanted voters to believe that Hinchcliffe is a monster whose ethos is a direct descendent to Trump and his then-possibly incoming administration.

Fast-forward two years and Hinchcliffe was in the crosshairs again for his roast jokes, this time at a literal roast. Jokes about George Floyd during the roast of Kevin Hart were deemed as "not even a joke" by Wanda Sykes, while Floyd's foundation labeled Hinchcliffe a "racist comedian" in a series of insulting statements.

There's a problem with these accusations though. There was a lot of footage they forgot to erase.

The smokeout

Despite constant backlash in the media, Hinchcliffe has always refused to back down, punch after punch, year after year. Perhaps the reason is because Hinchcliffe knows he has the tapes to back himself up.

December 10, 2016, 10:00 p.m.: The "Snoop Dogg Smokeout" airs, ironically, a month before Trump takes office for the first time.

Snoop Dogg, Mike Epps, Terry Crews, LL Cool J, and ... Tony Hinchcliffe.

In front of what Snoop described as an "all-black crowd," Tony did what Tony does.

"Hello everybody, you're all under arrest," Hinchcliffe began.

Soon, the then-32-year-old told comedian Luenell she looks like she needed "two seats on the Underground Railroad."

This was followed by Hinchcliffe saying comedian Michael Blackson had his makeup done with a "charcoal briquette" and that Snoop's estranged kids would love to smoke weed with him if they ever met.

No one was offended; in fact, other comedians were literally falling out of their chairs as audience members waved towels and screamed.

RELATED: Joe Rogan & Shane Gillis say we're never going back — and young men should listen

Snoop was the most impressed. Within the year, he had Hinchcliffe on his own podcast to reveal what today would be highly controversial news: The allegedly racist comedian was writing a movie for one of the most iconic rappers of all time.

Total recall

In more forgotten footage, Snoop spoke more about his friendship with the Ohio comedian years later on "The Joe Rogan Experience."

"He's the s**t," Snoop said about Hinchcliffe.

Airing just four months before the MSG debacle, host Joe Rogan said he was ready to go all-out in support of Hinchcliffe's career. Snoop and Rogan went back and forth praising Tony, declaring him to be one of the best roast comedians of all time.

Snoop then directly addressed Hinchcliffe's racial comedy at his own roast, saying, "I seen him at an all-black [show] with an all-black crowd steal the f**king show."

Rogan said he had "all his chips in" on Hinchcliffe as the two contemplated how to make him a star. Spitballing ideas, the duo came up with show ideas for Hinchcliffe, with Snoop himself saying that a roast battle format mixed with musical performances could force a monumental shift in pop culture.

"It would make the sensitive people, to comedy, be nonsensitive because now you have two comedians talking s**t about each other."

The audience couldn't possibly be sensitive to jokes after seeing that, Snoop asserted.

"We'll change the narrative," Snoop said. "That's my guy."

RELATED: Boys will be boys: Shane Gillis' record-breaking Philadelphia show was more than just a comedy set

WWE/Getty Images

The media illusion isn't strong enough to convince most audience members or comedians that Tony is racist. That includes Kevin Hart, who was the butt of many of the allegedly harmful jokes months ago.

Hart has explained that he was never actually offended by the roast jokes, saying he is always going to "appreciate humor," even when the humor is about him being "on a slave ship in a bottle."

Even through-and-through Democrat supporter Jon Stewart defended Hinchcliffe through the ordeal.

It's not likely that anyone short of Chelsea Handler will think of Hinchcliffe as a "racist comedian," when in proximity of him, it's actually difficult to do so.

Hinchcliffe's wildly popular "Kill Tony" show features an all-Mexican horn section, a Mexican drummer, a blind black guitarist, and a black keyboardist. A lot of the show's most popular regulars are definitively not white, so are some of his closest comedian friends.

If these associations still aren't enough to convince progressives, Hinchcliffe's answer is simple:

"I apologize to absolutely nobody. Not to the Puerto Ricans, not to the whites, not to the blacks, not to the Palestinians, not to the Jews, and not to my own mother, who I made fun of during the set."

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Joe Rogan & Shane Gillis say we're never going back — and young men should listen



A night of drinking in Belfast gave Joe Rogan an epiphany: It's never going to be that way again.

Joking with fellow comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ari Shaffir, the quartet were going through their usual roundtable of anecdotes when — as usual — some sage advice poked its head through.

'Cameras have ruined young people.'

Just the flip

Rogan was recalling a night on the town in Northern Ireland, telling his friends about a literal drunken Irishman who was rambling about being willing to fight anyone. That experience, known only to him, is foregone history now thanks to modern technology.

"I miss those days where I could just go to a bar and just just pull up and just get lit. It was fun," Rogan said on his podcast.

"It's too hard" now, the comedian continued; it's all about the phones.

"So this is like 2007 ... there's no cameras. There's no phones. Nobody. There's no iPhone yet. So it's like people were just hanging out."

Then even Normand, who is usually a sunglasses-wearing fly on the wall who provides inappropriate remarks, was in lock-step with how smartphones have caused generational issues for the youth.

"Cameras have ruined young people, [they] can't cut loose."

Rogan concurred, "Phones ruined everything in terms of like, people's connection with each other."

The 59-year-old has lived a long time in the spotlight; whether it was reporting from early UFC events, hosting "Fear Factor," or doing stand-up tours, he feels confident pinpointing the exact place in time young people should be trying to replicate.

"The old phones, that was as far as we should have went. The flip phone that you could text on, and the texting sucked."

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Scroll models

Rogan's message been clear over the years: Put the phone away or face being "stuck," only if for a few days.

"I've pulled back considerably like I was saying, over the last three months. ... I just decided enough is enough," Rogan continued. "I don't like how I feel when I just scroll through doom."

Having previously stated that he doesn't want his phone anywhere near him while driving, Rogan, along with Gillis, has been signaling to young men that being disconnected from one's phone can not only serve as an advantage, it can be a relief.

The dreadful feeling was Gillis' angle, who felt like his decision to disconnect was thrust upon him, as opposed to a conscious move like that of Rogan.

Mirroring lawsuits against popular social media companies, Gillis said his exodus from platforms isn't a choice, instead he "got lucky enough that I can't look at it anymore. I can't. It's just negative."

"It's not like I'm like making a disciplined choice to be like, 'I don't want to look at this anymore,'" Gillis added. He hasn't looked at Reddit in years, and he can't even bring himself to look at X.

"It genuinely makes me feel bad," he stressed.

"I don't want to click on it anymore."

RELATED: 'House' star Hugh Laurie responds to claims he supports men in women's sports: 'Firstly, f**k off'

Anna Barclay/Getty Images

Bro breakthrough

The four horsemen of "Protect Our Parks" represent the advanced status of a group of friends from different backgrounds who made it big.

The reflection men see in them is obvious; it's like bros in a basement. This is specifically present when Rogan says things like, "There's a UFC in L.A. If you guys want to take over the Comedy Store for a weekend," as if they're heading to the bar.

But in that commentary comes lessons for the next generation of young men:

"You don't want to live in their world," Rogan said of influencers and phone addicts.

The truth bombs culminated:

"You don't want to be in their head, and they don't want it either. And the only way for them out is to not do that. And if they keep doing it and keep living in that f**king same swamp of ideas, they're never going to change."

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Cancel culture fired Shane Gillis — America hired him back



In July, Shane Gillis made comedy history, selling more than 77,000 tickets and setting records for the largest audience for a comedian and the most tickets sold for a solo stand-up act. The achievement put him past names like Kevin Hart, Steve Martin, and German stand-up Mario Barth.

It also came just seven years after cancel culture nearly killed his career.

Shane Gillis did not beat cancel culture by becoming less offensive. He beat it by becoming too successful to cancel.

In 2019, shortly after Comedy Central named him an “Up Next” comedian, Gillis landed the job every comic dreams about: a spot on “Saturday Night Live.” Then old clips surfaced of him doing a mock Asian accent and using a racial slur. Other clips featured supposedly unacceptable jokes about gay people. Within days, SNL fired him. Gillis later described the experience as painful enough to make it hard to “trust people ... for a while.”

The timing was brutal. Gillis was fired during what we now recognize as peak woke, when careers could vanish because somebody with a Twitter account dug through 10 years of jokes and found the wrong sentence.

He was hardly alone. Sarah Silverman faced backlash over an old blackface bit. Dave Chappelle was attacked for mocking Michael Jackson’s accusers. Kevin Hart’s old tweets were dragged back into the spotlight. Suddenly the internet had discovered a tremendous new power: If enough people pretended to be offended at once, they could get somebody fired.

For a while, almost everyone played along.

That was always the secret of cancel culture. It was never a magical force. It was a consensual ideology. It worked because institutions submitted to it, employers feared it, and ordinary people convinced themselves that refusing to obey would make them the next target.

Words became temporarily unsayable. Leftists rewrote definitions and then declared that only certain people were allowed to use them. “Gone with the Wind” was pulled from streaming. James Gunn and Gina Carano lost jobs. People learned to keep their mouths shut because being called racist, sexist, or homophobic could cost them a career.

The woke mob did not win because everyone agreed with it. It won because too many people were afraid to laugh at it.

Now, two presidencies removed from peak woke, the whole thing looks much sillier. Plenty of celebrities once declared untouchable have returned to the mainstream. Land acknowledgments and pronoun rituals have become punch lines. “Culturally insensitive,” the kind of phrase that helped sink Gillis, sounds increasingly like a relic from a very stupid age.

So people post offensive jokes, recycle old podcast clips, and celebrate that “woke is dead.”

I would not start planning the funeral.

Cancel culture isn’t dead. It’s hiding.

Conservatives have every reason to feel confident right now. Republicans control Congress and the presidency. The administration has attacked “diversity, equity, and inclusion” throughout the federal government. The Supreme Court has handed down major victories protecting women’s sports. It can be tempting to believe the culture could never slide back to 2019.

RELATED: BILL PILLED: Maher warns fellow Democrats that they're headed for woke-tastrophe

Shannon Finney/WireImage/Getty Images

But Donald Trump was president in 2019 too.

The first and second Trump administrations are very different, but Trump’s presence by itself does not prevent a woke resurgence. Cultural power does not live only in Washington. It lives in entertainment, universities, corporations, HR departments, newsrooms, and the countless people who decide whether the mob gets rewarded for showing up.

Gillis’ comeback is encouraging precisely because he did not wait for those institutions to forgive him.

Podcasts gave him somewhere else to go. After SNL fired him, Gillis joked that he could just appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast and everything would be fine. And he was right. Audiences increasingly learned that independently produced shows could be funnier, more honest, and less filtered than legacy television.

That shift reached well beyond comedy. Podcasts became a major force in the 2024 election. Trump and JD Vance used long-form appearances to show voters their humor and personalities outside carefully managed television interviews. Kamala Harris’ refusal to sit down with Rogan only reinforced the contrast. In the peak-woke era, scripted liberal slogans might have been enough. By 2024, they sounded canned.

Comedy is often the canary in the coal mine because comedy requires tension, risk, and the possibility that somebody will be offended. A culture that cannot tolerate a joke will eventually struggle to tolerate an argument.

Gillis rebuilt his career, but comedians are still testing the limits. Jerry Seinfeld said the “extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy,” then later walked that back by saying culture moves and a comedian’s job is to adapt. David Spade criticized L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for “killing Hollywood” and took heat for it. Nate Bargatze was slammed simply for attending Trump’s UFC event at the White House.

RELATED: Colorado fire department employee FIRED over Snoop Dogg doll that ‘evoked’ history of ‘racial terror’

Heidi Gutman/Bravo/Getty Images

That is what hiding looks like. The old cultural reflex is still there, waiting for institutions to become afraid again.

Woke politics will not return because somebody waves a magic wand. It will return one concession at a time: one employee fired to stop a controversy, one joke declared beyond the pale, one institution deciding it is easier to surrender than tell an angry mob no.

That is why conservatives should resist the temptation to declare victory and go home. Free speech survives only when people keep using it. Comedy survives only when comedians keep telling the joke. Culture stays open only when institutions refuse to hand professional hecklers a veto.

The late, great Norm Macdonald understood this better than most. Early in his career, he joked: “People were beginning to talk about me, and that’s always good news. As Adolf Hitler once said, all publicity is good publicity.”

Shane Gillis did not beat cancel culture by becoming less offensive. He beat it by becoming too successful to cancel. That’s worth celebrating. It is not a reason to stop paying attention.

Gorsuch Abandons Originalism (Again) With Claims America Isn’t A Christian Nation

Justice Gorsuch keeps insisting America was founded as a religiously neutral nation, but the founding-era record tells a very different story.

Vance’s path to 2028 just got much more complicated



Until late 2025, the Republican Party appeared likely to carry the MAGA coalition more or less intact into the 2028 presidential election. No successor can reproduce Trump’s personality or political style. But the coalition he assembled — working-class voters, growing numbers of Latinos and other former Democrats, and disaffected liberals such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — seemed durable.

JD Vance also appeared ready to clear the field. Marco Rubio, the only other plausible heir with national support, said just a few months ago that he would back Vance in 2028 if the vice president ran. The nomination looked less like a contest than a succession plan.

Much of the base may share Vance’s instincts, but the right is far from unanimous. His victory in an open contest cannot be assumed.

When I wrote my book, “JD Vance and the Future of the Republican Party,” the first sustained examination of Vance’s political thought and his place in the post-Trump GOP, that outcome seemed nearly certain. Vance would declare around the 2026 midterms. Rubio would endorse him. A few marginal candidates might enter, but none would reach double digits.

That scenario remains possible. It is no longer inevitable.

Two related developments have changed the equation: the fight over the U.S.-Israel relationship on the right and the war in Iran.

The first does not implicate Vance directly, but it has fractured the political world he must lead. Far-right podcasters and pundits have fixated on Israel and Jews for years. The dispute moved from the fringes toward the center when Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes on his podcast in October 2025, one month after Charlie Kirk — one of the right’s most effective coalition builders and gatekeepers — was assassinated. Influential voices soon moved beyond debating the wisdom and limits of the U.S.-Israel alliance to entertaining conspiratorial claims that Jews themselves threatened America.

The conservative movement has never been intellectually uniform. Libertarians, social conservatives, anti-communist liberals, nationalists, and other factions have long competed under the Republican tent. But the past nine months have produced something more corrosive. Positions on Israel, American Jews, and even individual media personalities have become loyalty tests. Conservatives increasingly sort themselves into camps and excommunicate dissenters.

Every presidential nominee must unite competing factions. Vance faces an unusual version of that task because he entered politics through the world of conservative intellectuals, think tanks, and media. He has friends and allies across rival camps. Preserving those relationships without appearing captive to any of them may become one of his hardest political tests.

RELATED: JD Vance reveals opinion on Epstein files, explains ‘demon’ alien theory, slams ‘full of s**t’ Gavin Newsom with Joe Rogan

Nathan Howard/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The war in Iran has made that test harder. Trump’s coalition has always included incompatible foreign-policy factions: George W. Bush-era interventionists, advocates of a restrained and more hemispheric strategy, and hard-line isolationists. The alliance held as long as the administration avoided wars that lacked a clear connection to the American interest.

Iran forced the disagreement into the open. Will the Republican Party continue military campaigns in the Middle East, or will it reserve force for direct threats to the United States? Republicans answer that question very differently, and the war has split the party. Any 2028 nominee will have to navigate the divide.

Vance is no isolationist, but his instincts favor restraint. He is also more willing than many senior Republicans to question the scope of U.S. commitments to Israel. Those positions may appeal to much of the base while alarming interventionists, pro-Israel conservatives, and establishment donors.

Can Vance maintain relationships with controversial figures such as Carlson, reconsider American commitments in the Middle East, and still hold the Republican coalition together? A competitive 2028 primary would force those questions into the open. Much of the base may share Vance’s instincts, but the right is far from unanimous. His victory in an open contest cannot be assumed.

Rubio remains the likeliest challenger. He has said he will not oppose Vance if the vice president runs, but supporters continue to promote the popular secretary of state as a candidate. Rubio’s greater acceptability to establishment Republicans and his more interventionist foreign policy would turn the primary into a direct contest over the party’s future. He could expose every fault line Vance must bridge.

One factor may matter more than all the others: Trump’s endorsement.

RELATED: The GOP’s 2028 ticket math is already brutal

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

After the Iran war, Vance is less likely to coast through a genuinely open primary, especially if Rubio changes his mind. But Republicans may never receive an open primary. Trump still commands the party he reshaped, relishes the role of kingmaker, and will want to choose his successor.

An unequivocal Trump endorsement of Vance could end the contest before it begins. Other candidates could run, but they would struggle against a Trump-Vance succession. If Trump chooses Vance, the vice president may become the 2028 nominee by anointing rather than competition.

Trump has spoken more than once about the race to succeed him. Once he speaks definitively, the question may no longer be whether Vance can win the Republican primary. It may be whether the party is willing to hold one.

If Trump names Vance, he will likely become the future of the Republican Party. Trump will decide whether the party gets a primary or an anointing.

‘Need a cop? Thank socialism’ is dumb — but dangerously effective



Zohran Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign last year by promising to make New York City affordable through democratic socialism.

Now the bill is arriving.

Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good. That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American politics.

New York’s new pied-à-terre tax took effect this month. Almost immediately, the luxury real estate market tanked. Wealthy buyers, it turns out, are not livestock. They can delay purchases, move money, change residency, or simply decline to participate in Mamdani’s experiment.

This elementary fact appears to have surprised the people running America’s largest city.

That’s the trouble with democratic socialists. They are forever astonished when human beings refuse to behave like figures in a budget projection.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has a solution: Make the argument so stupid that nobody can discuss socialism seriously at all.

Appearing recently on “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Ellison announced that police departments are socialist because taxpayers fund them.

“You call the cops; guess who pays them. Your tax dollars,” Ellison said. “Guess what that is. That’s socialism, pal!”

He threw in fire departments, water inspectors, and public works for good measure.

No, pal. That isn’t socialism. That’s just government.

Ellison wasn’t offering a forensic definition, of course. He was performing a cheap semantic trick for people he assumed would nod and applaud before thinking.

Police are socialism. Firefighters are socialism. Roads are socialism. Public schools are socialism. (Well, yes, kind of.) Once every government function becomes socialist, socialism no longer requires a defense. You already support it. You have no choice. Unless you plan to extinguish your own house fire, arrest your own burglar, and pave the road yourself, welcome to the revolution.

Joe Rogan has been repeating the same dumb line for years, I’m sorry to say. Last year, he again called the fire department socialist because everybody pays for it and everybody receives protection.

I like Rogan. He isn’t a malefactor like Ellison. He simply does not know what he is talking about. That is less wicked, but it is increasingly difficult to excuse in a man who has spent thousands of hours interviewing people who actually know things.

Millions hear Rogan and think: Well, gosh, that makes sense.

No, it doesn’t. It’s flat wrong.

Worse, Ellison and Rogan smuggle in the same fraudulent choice: socialism or chaos.

Either government employs police officers and firefighters, builds roads, and inspects drinking water, or every citizen must hire his own private constable, buy his own fire engine, and fill the pothole at the end of the driveway.

That is not the choice.

RELATED: The media’s Democratic cover-up is collapsing

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Socialism concerns ownership and control of productive property. Government collects taxes, enforces laws, maintains courts, fields armies, and provides services. Governments did all of those things long before socialism acquired a name.

By the Ellison-Rogan standard, if we can call it that, every king who collected taxes was a socialist. Ancient Rome was socialist because it built aqueducts. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were socialists because the national government employed customs agents. Louis XIV was apparently waiting for the workers to seize Versailles.

The alternative to socialism is not anarchy. It is limited government.

Conservatives sometimes make the mistake of talking as though government itself were the enemy. It isn’t. Not necessarily. Bad government is the enemy. Unlimited government is the enemy. Government that exceeds its legitimate purposes, devours private institutions, and treats citizens as dependents is the enemy.

But we need government.

We need cops and firefighters. We need courts, armies, roads, and public works — the odd toll road notwithstanding. Somebody must enforce contracts, punish violence, defend the country, and preserve public order.

Ordered liberty requires order.

The American political tradition does not reject government. It recognizes that government is necessary and dangerous and therefore must be limited by law. That is a much older and more serious idea than the facile view that every tax-funded service is socialism and every objection to socialism is an argument for anarchy.

Ellison knows better. That’s what makes him a bad guy. He understands perfectly well that a police department is not socialism. He chooses to speak as though he does not because the confusion serves him.

If cops and firefighters are socialism, then socialism is already as American as apple pie. No need to defend rent controls, wealth taxes, government grocery stores, confiscatory tax schemes, or the steady expansion of public power on their merits. Just offer the child’s syllogism: Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good.

That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American cities.

RELATED: ‘Back the blue’ cannot mean blind obedience

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Ellison is dishonest about words because dishonesty serves his politics. Rogan is careless with ideas because being laughably wrong has never reduced his audience. Mamdani is careless with markets because he imagines moral righteousness repeals the law of supply and demand.

These are not serious people. But they are seriously dangerous.

They hold offices, microphones, audiences, and influence wildly disproportionate to their judgment. They confuse applause with vindication and slogans with thought. They speak with total confidence because none of them expects to pay for being wrong.

The people who do pay are homeowners, renters, workers, employers, customers, and taxpayers who cannot laugh, wave, and leave the consequences to somebody else.

Democratic socialism’s new champions are not merely wrong about economics. They are frivolous about power. They offer socialism or chaos because admitting the existence of limited government would ruin the con.

They are playing with cities and states they are not wise or disciplined enough to govern. Shine, perishing republic!

‘Fascinating’: JD Vance tells Joe Rogan the Trump administration ‘screwed up the comms’ with the Epstein files



For years, the Epstein files have fueled endless speculation, conspiracy theories, and demands for transparency — which have resulted in widespread disappointment among Americans demanding to know the truth.

Now, on the biggest podcast in the world, Vice President JD Vance is offering one of the administration’s most direct explanations yet for why the highly anticipated document release left so many Americans frustrated.

“The Epstein files were supposed to be released,” Joe Rogan said to Vance on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “And there was a tremendous amount of resistance to those files being released. That concerned a lot of people because if you’re talking about very wealthy, powerful people that were engaged in crimes.”

“So you’re basically saying the fear is that whatever’s in the Epstein files was used to blackmail the administration into doing the Iran thing,” Vance replied.


“Or, at the very least, the people that were involved in the Epstein files that didn’t want them coming out had undue influence,” Rogan said.

“I say this with all candor, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. Like we just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No,” Vance explained.

Instead, Vance believes the reason the administration “screwed up the comms” was that former Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed the client list was on her desk.

“So, what was the purpose of that performative display of the Epstein files, and she was saying there’s tens of thousands of hours of film?” Rogan asked.

“I don’t know what the purpose of it was, but I know that the effect of it was to make people mistrust the entire effort,” Vance answered, noting that he believes Bondi was “trying to respond to the political moment.”

Vance called himself one of the “OG Epstein conspiracy theorists” and admitted to going “down every single rabbit hole.”

“The original sin of the Epstein investigation, and obviously I’m biased here, but it was not what Donald Trump and the administration did in 2025. It was, you have to go back to 2007, 2008, the original Alex Acosta investigation of Jeffrey Epstein where he basically dropped the federal charges,” he explained.

“You go to the original warrant back in 2008, what was he looking for? What was he allowed to look for? What were they collecting? It was not looking at a broader conspiracy,” he added.

“That’s fascinating,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever find out the truth,” he adds, “but that was fascinating.”

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