Shane

I was watching the old cowboy flick, Shane, last night--one of my all time favorite movies--and it occurred to me that nearly anything these days can be compared to the Trump administration and the troubles it has brought upon America. Here you have the lawless, my way or the highway free range ranchers set against  the decent, law-abiding though downtrodden sod busters--no match for the violently unreasonable, gun toting ranchers, not to mention their hired killer (Jack Palance). The sod busters know what's right. Everyone knows what's right. Even the ranchers know what's right, theoretically. But what is right is not the issue. The issue is what they (the ranchers) want, what is most convenient and beneficial to them  But "right" is not good enough on its own. It needs an enforcer. A man of goodness and integrity, who is nonetheless as hard and pitiless as the ranchers and their guns. Enter Shane (Alan Ladd), the steel steady gunfighter with a heart, and a stubborn, nonnegotiable sense of right and wrong. (We see this again in later cowboy heroes such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood). Essentially, the ranchers know that their fate is sealed as soon as Shane shows up. It is just a matter of time. And Donald Trump knows that the game is up, too. It is only a matter of time. Shane, the cowboy Lancelot, representative of basic decency, a law unto himself but a greater one than that which motivates the tyrannical ranchers, is coming for him. And freedom and liberty shall reign again on the prairie--not that of the free roaming beast but of the fence builder and of the boundaries that benefit all.