They do preach to an audience already conditioned to believe what they say, who have had any semblance of critical thinking skills educated out of them.
For instance, this nugget from the article which plays up the Christians as tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy nutjobs theme:
Perkins and his allies intend to keep hammering on the Christian-persecution theme as Election Day nears.
Yet at the same time their fellow Progressive media outlets are running stories claiming that religious belief is a mental illness (Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome/Religious Trauma Syndrome) as can be seen
in this recent FR thread
All the while being completely oblivious to the fact that Conservatives, who actually have critical thinking educated INTO them, can see and understand the vile little discrepancy at work.