The Huckster In the Image of Elmer Gantry

The mere exercise of
superimposing Burt Lancaster will instantly translate Elmer Gantry into South Carolina or Mike

Huckabee into Gritzmaker Springs, KA….

On Monday, January 14, theocrat and Republican presidential
candidate, Michael Huckabee, riding high among the Christian Right in the Bible
belt and in the deep South, inadvertently announced his agenda:

I have opponents in this race who do
not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change
the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And
that's what we need to do — is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's
standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some
contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

For those of you who are fortunate or unfortunate enough, as
the case may be, to recall the striking image of Elmer Gantry appealing to the proletariat to forsake their ways
and, of course, their meager funds, a picture of the Huckabee appeal begins to
emerge.  The mere exercise of
superimposing Burt Lancaster will instantly translate Elmer Gantry into South Carolina or Mike
Huckabee into Gritzmaker Springs, KA. 

Despite Sinclair Lewis's disclaimer in his book on which the
movie was based that "No character in this book is a portrait of any actual
person," clicking back and forth is too facile for comfort.  Evangelicals who have become so corrupted by
culture as to have forsaken seersucker suits and white socks with their
inherent vapid pronouncements stand in stunned silence as the party of Lincoln
and Theodore Roosevelt plunges like lemmings over the precipice of history.

So long, however, as there is a segment of the population
(perhaps as many as 30% of Americans) that insists that a few carefully
selected Bible verses will cover a lifetime of intellectual laziness, the Elmer
Gantry's of this world will always have a platform.

Huckabee long ago mounted that platform that moves
gracefully from the ghetto of the fundamentalist church to the political
caucus.  In that sense, Elmer Gantry has
been updated to a vista that likely may never have occurred either to Sinclair
Lewis or to the producers of the movie.

While we dare not ascribe to Huckabee the hypocrisy evident
in the evangelist Gantry, the question remains whether the Huckabee phenomenon represents
progress or digression.  The question
also remains as to whether or not hypocrisy is a vital ingredient in both the
religious practices and political leanings of the Christian Right in America.

From the Right, the Elmer Gantry image is projected onto
former Vice President Al Gore.  As
"Father of the Internet" and prophet of Global Warming, the appeal of Gore to
the intellectually challenged is irresistible to some, they say.  Conservative writer, James Lewis, posturing
himself as an "American Thinker," has this to say about Al Gore:

The comparison between Al Gore and
Elmer Gantry is hard to resist, the main difference being that Elmer Gantry was
a fictional mixture of the populist
preachers of Sinclair Lewis' time. But Gantry was solidly based on fact,
just as Al Gore is deeply entrenched in fiction.  A shrewd mix of fact and
fiction is the stock in trade of many a carnival barker and politician.

 

Both Elmer and Al are basically
Southern-style demagogues; both are cagey PR preachers who have made it pay
very well, thank you; both have lives of dubious moral standing. (Remember the
1996 immigrant legalization fraud? The impoverished Buddhist nuns in LA who
suddenly provided mucho dinero to Al Gore's presidential
campaign? Remember Al Gore Sr., who was reputedly in the deep pockets
of Soviet
KGB paymaster Armand Hammer for many years?  

 

When Al Gore adopted the voice and
dialect of a Black Baptist preacher in the 2000 election, most of us cringed in
embarrassment. Looking back, it may have been a moment of true self-discovery.
Ever since, Mr. Gore has been morphing into a very secular Old Testament
Jeremiah. [1]

For the consumption of the average, middle-of-the-road
American attempting to dodge the bullet of governmental meddling, it would
appear that the Gantry phenomenon is alive and well in American politics.  As from many a pulpit, telling the people
what they want to hear fits nicely into the process of earning their votes.

The tragedy comes when what the people want to hear is
beyond the scope of mere rhetoric and posturing, a situation in which America is fast
finding itself mired.
 

[1] http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/al_gore_goes_elmer_gantry.html