The Preacher, The Tout, And Kamala Harris - A Stairway To Heaven

Billy Graham was the spiritual advisor to Presidents, and whatever their faith - as long as it was Christian - Graham was there for them.  He famously prayed with Richard Nixon as he was trying to pull it together before the final curtain to the Watergate opera fell, and was a counsel to twelve others before and after him. 

Billy Graham was everywhere – on television, kneeling alongside Presidents (his account of praying with a tearful Richard Nixon made headlines), lecturing, and preaching at tent revivals.  He was America’s evangelist, the public face of our deep Christian spirituality.  Americans looked to him for moral and ethical guidance.

 

Or not.  To many he was a charlatan, one more publicity-seeking, Bible-thumping huckster in the long tradition of American revivalists, snake-oil salesman, and get-rich-quick carny con men. Burt Lancaster played a perfect Billy Graham in Elmer Gantry, the Sinclair Lewis itinerant preacher out to make a buck, get in Sister Ruth’s pants, and take every rural rube in the country for a ride. Lancaster could have been portraying Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, Pat Robertson, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, or a hundred other evangelists who have barnstormed the country since the wagons went west. 

There was no escaping Billy Graham for almost fifty years. He was everywhere and with everyone. He was America’s go-to good person. Being seen with Billy Graham had no downside whatsoever. 

Those few who thought him a sanctimonious publicity hound were too few to matter. Politicians and political wannabees trotted him out even when he was doddering and never sure who had invited him.

It was a win-win game.  Politicos used Graham to pander to their fundamentalist voters, to show the Christian flag, and to stand publicly for morality and righteousness.  And Graham basked in the reflected glory of public figures.  He didn’t seem to care who they were or what they stood for.  He was uninterested in the straightness of their moral spine, the cut of their ethical jib, or the purpose in their hearts.  He would stand, kneel, and sing with anybody.

Billy Graham hobbled to the Oval Office to the very end and his passing signaled the last days of presidential spiritual guidance.  Progressives, while acknowledging the role of religion in American life, found it a bother, a troublesome bit of quackery that slowed the wheels of social reform. Southern evangelists, those of Biblical originalism, creationism, and charismatic faith were the worst - credulous, epiphanic dupes who whooped and hollered for Jesus and let everything ride on his miraculous robes.  

In progressive circles prayer, especially the Billy Graham-style bended knee brand was declassee, retrograde, and totally irrelevant.  If there was a God - and progressive secularists had their doubts- he wouldn't be listening to the plaints and whines of men.  If God did not prevent the Holocaust, they argued, why on earth would he bother with the health of Aunt Tilly.  The kneeling together, holding of hands, bowing of heads, and tearful appeals of the likes of Billy Graham are sheer nonsense, charlatan fol-de-rol, and self-serving fakery. 

And so it was that Kamala Harris, poised to take the Presidency or near enough to victory to begin thinking about her inauguration and her first days in office, was advised by a senior aide to consider some gesture to religious Americans, some sign that In God We Trust would still be the meme of the Harris Administration.  'Invite Isaiah Hammond', the aide said. 

Now, Hammond was a well-known preacher who had made a fortune.  Grandson of a sharecropper, twelve-year old inspirational preacher at the AME Zion Church of the Redeemer in Indianola, Mississippi, and Megatron genius of television and social media, he would be the right recognizable face to be on the podium when the Lady took her oath of office.  Hammond virtually signified faith, and without saying a word embodied it.  Not only that, he appealed mightily to both blacks and whites.  His particular brand of evangelism broke all color barriers. 

When word got out that the soon-to-be next President of the United States might include the Reverend Hammond at the Inauguration and consider him for a certain post in the White House, his front men got busy. They knew that despite the suggestion of Harris's senior aide, there would be considerable opposition from the dyed-in-the-wool secularists around her; and so Hammond's advance team selected Bellinger Leggett to work the crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue and grease the wheels for a generous welcome of their man into the Oval Office. 

Leggett was an old-style tout, a conman, shell-game, Ponzi-trained, genius marketer of empty schemes; and he had been hired by Reverend Hammond exactly because of this experience.  Hammond was cut from the same cloth and had used his brilliant style of chicanery and a silver tongue to keep the cash registers ringing and his coffers full.  From his small rural church in Indianola to the millions who tuned into him every Friday evening, congregants were convinced that he was Jesus' emissary. 

Unlike Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim Bakker - half-witted religious carny barkers at best - Hammond had become a master at his own credit swaps, innovative financial instruments, and tax evasion schemes to become a millionaire many times over; and his network of media, door-to-door evangelists, and sophisticated mail order and Amazon-like electronic services assured him of perennial treasure. 

As in the case of Billy Graham, most Americans took Hammond's sainthood and divine appointment for granted and looked no further into the man's bald, self-serving ambition.  He could do no wrong; so on the basis of this credulous blindness, the ubiquity of his image, and the popular reviews of his mission, this uber-trickster could very likely ascend the steps to the highest office in he land. A sinecure at the White House would be just the thing.  Penetrating the inner circle of godless Democratic Washington would be a challenge, but well worth it.

'Just meet him', Kamala's aide urged. 'It will be good for the country', and so it was that the door to the White House was opened to the preacher and the tout. 

Bellinger Leggett, the tout, was an incredibly handsome young black man - or like the Vice President, a mulatto with mixed blood of Cubans, Portuguese slavers, and he claimed, the Duke of Northumberland. Genetic fortune had been his since birth, and his success was not only due to his savvy, and preternatural sense of profit and gullibility, but his stunning good looks - looks that could attract whites, blacks, and every other race on the planet. 

Kamala, like all women before her, was stunned at the allure of the man.  Not only was he colored in the most beautiful way, but sexually attractive - a man of supreme confidence and self-assurance, always first and foremost on the list of dominant male traits.  'Come in', she said, 'and make yourself comfortable', and so began the biggest con game since Enron and Bernie Madoff. 

The tout knew exactly how to play the race card, the political card, and the religion card.  He wove a masterful tale of how spiritual values equaled votes, and how the millions of followers of his boss, white and black, without hesitation would turn their attention to the Lady. 

And when she met his boss, the Reverend Isaiah Hammond, she found herself looking at an older clone of the tout.  Hammond, although typically Southern black by resume, was as seductively octoroon as his associate, Leggett.  He was suave, greying, and elegant in his Armani suit, fine silk tie, and handmade Italian shoes; and when he spoke it was in a smooth, deep organ baritone of rich, orotund sounds.

He knew enough to keep quiet about Jesus, Mark 22:5-10, and Biblical injunction - hallmarks of his sectarian sermons but out of place here - and limned more broadly the appeal of religion in general.  Yes, he told the Vice President, many believers are indeed white Georgia crackers who don't know shit from Shinola, but they vote, you need a bass boat following, and I can bring them home. 

The Vice President, known principally for her ambition, take-no-prisoners courtroom holocausts, and career singlemindedness was an easy mark for Leggett and Hammond; and before long, the preacher was a frequent visitor to the Vice President's chambers where together they worked on his Inauguration homily and indirectly on his role as Senior Spiritual Advisor to the President - a no-show job which would be necessary given the Lady's new show of religious attention. 

As of this writing, the election is but a few weeks away, and the polls give no real indication of a winner; but the Harris camp is convinced of victory, and has been meticulous in its planning for this foregone conclusion.  

Reverend Hammond, Leggett the tout, and their entire Memphis headquarters staff celebrated what would certainly be their most noteworthy and notable achievement. 'I'm buying', said Hammond and the celebration began.