Yeah, yeah, I know. "Whaddya mean, TV preachers are already organized crime!"
Jokes aside, with a POD of any time since the advent of TV evengelism(or radio evangelists even), have the mob infiltrate and manipulate broadcast ministries. Maybe something analagous to what they did with big-city unions, though with the preachers, blackmail tactics might play a bigger role.
How it could work, for example...
The mob wants to open up a casino somewhere, but are in battle with another company for the only gaming license the city is planning to give that year. So they send someone to talk to a prominent TV preacher saying "Unless you want us to release the photos we have of you ducking into a motel with your secretary, make sure that your next anti-gambling segment features lots of stuff about all the people led into a life of sin and dissolution at our rivals' casinos." Not sure if that would work(could backfire if it turns people against gambling generally), but that would be the general idea.
A problem could be the ethnic-divide. Big-city gangs with heavy represntation from Jews, Italians, Irish etc might not hit it off so swimmingly with the protestant crackers who tend to make up the bulk of the TV preachers. Maybe biker gangs might be the ticket? Or converts from traditionally Catholic ethnicities(Hispanic or filipino evangelicals etc)?
Jokes aside, with a POD of any time since the advent of TV evengelism(or radio evangelists even), have the mob infiltrate and manipulate broadcast ministries. Maybe something analagous to what they did with big-city unions, though with the preachers, blackmail tactics might play a bigger role.
How it could work, for example...
The mob wants to open up a casino somewhere, but are in battle with another company for the only gaming license the city is planning to give that year. So they send someone to talk to a prominent TV preacher saying "Unless you want us to release the photos we have of you ducking into a motel with your secretary, make sure that your next anti-gambling segment features lots of stuff about all the people led into a life of sin and dissolution at our rivals' casinos." Not sure if that would work(could backfire if it turns people against gambling generally), but that would be the general idea.
A problem could be the ethnic-divide. Big-city gangs with heavy represntation from Jews, Italians, Irish etc might not hit it off so swimmingly with the protestant crackers who tend to make up the bulk of the TV preachers. Maybe biker gangs might be the ticket? Or converts from traditionally Catholic ethnicities(Hispanic or filipino evangelicals etc)?