Allen Abel, 26, 2015, McLeans.ca

The Shadrach of American politics is sitting beside the fiery furnace in a grey suit and a cheery blue tie, waiting for bad old King Nebuchadnezzar to throw him in. “I’m not sure that Ben Carson and I even agree that today is Wednesday,” the monarch is saying. Hearing this, awaiting a public execution, a battalion of eager Babylonians in the hotel ballroom cluck and stomp and clap. But the Reverend Al Sharpton stops them short. “He has the right,” says this country’s go-to raja of race. “And he has the ability to be respected by a community that he rose from.”

The setting is a Sheraton on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. The audience is the annual conclave of Sharpton’s National Action Network, a coming-together of thousands of African-American achievers, apostles and agitators, who range from chiefs of police and big-city mayors to street-level organizers and the daughters of Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King.

“This is what’s wrong with America,” says Sharpton, as some in the audience jeer at his invited guest. “I do not expect people to agree with me, even though I’m always right.”

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