It’s no secret that Franklin Graham is using and abusing the legacy of his father, Billy Graham, to become a water-carrier for the religious right. That was true long before the election. During the campaign, there was virtually no difference between him and veteran religious right nut jobs like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Ralph Reed. Apparently he forgot that his daddy’s reputation took a severe hit when he got too close to Richard Nixon.
But even by Graham fils’ low standards of late, a tweet he fired off on Wednesday afternoon is breathtakingly tone-deaf.
Do you think the Russians interfered with the outcome of the U.S. election or was it God?
— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 14, 2016
Apparently, Graham fils knows the answer to that question. On the morning after the election, he declared that Trump’s victory was nothing less than divine intervention.
So if we’re to believe Graham fils, God hacked into the campaign to intervene on behalf of a guy who plastered a private cell phone number on social media, mocked the disabled, condoned violence at his rallies, gloried in disrespecting women, turned a blind eye to blatant anti-Semitism, and revealed that he himself was a stone-cold anti-Semite. And if we’re to believe Graham fils, God told several FBI agents to engage in behavior that was unprofessional at best and criminal at worst in order to derail Hillary’s campaign. Yeah, OK.
By tweeting a question to which he was certain he already knew the answer, Graham fils was speaking in code. He apparently thinks that those of us wringing our hands at the prospect of a foreign power interfering in our election are forgetting about the “God factor.” To the ears of this reality-based charismatic/Pentecostal Dem, it sounds like Graham fils couldn’t resist another chance to revel in the fact that he and the others who pass for leadership on the religious right convinced 81 percent of white evangelicals that Trump’s outrageous behavior on the campaign trail didn’t matter because he was making the right clucking noises on social issues.
As I warned Graham fils last month, the religious right better enjoy this for now. We will make sure that he and other religious right leaders own every last bit of fail that comes from the Trump/McConnell/Ryan gang over the next two years. And when (not if) Trump is either forced to resign or is removed from office, we will do everything in our power to ensure that every religious right tail-ender who propped up Trump during the election goes down with him. Unless Graham fils comes to his senses and learns the lesson that his father learned, he will share their fate.
(featured image courtesy Graham fils’ Facebook)
