COWBOYS, INDIANS, AND RINOS

Vol. I | Issue. 3 | June 14, 2021

Once upon a time in America, Hollywood made cowboy movies. That all changed on March 27, 1973, when Marlon Brando refused to appear and accept the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Brando's performance was the best performance of his brilliant but faltering career and arguably the single best performance in American cinematic history. In lieu of a personal appearance to reject the award, the Don sent veteran Hollywood motion picture squaw "Sacheen Littlefeather,” nee Marie Louise Cruz, as his emissary, and she rejected the award on his behalf.

Appearing in a cute squaw outfit while protesting Hollywood’s Indian stereotypes, Littlefeather, when handed the award by presenter Roger Moore (the second-best 007 ever), rudely brushed aside the award and stated:

“Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening …. he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are [sic] the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry … and on television in movie reruns."

America, still in the early stages of the counterculture, was pissed. Through his comely squaw, Brando had wrecked the sheer joy of the magical American pageant that even the most cynical Americans had looked forward to every year since1929: The Academy Awards.

Even though most of America still loved a good cowboy movie, the emergence of the counterculture and its vast cultural megaphone caused the cowboy movie genre to begin dying a lingering, painful death. In the few cowboy movies that were still being made, it was the cowboys doing the scalping and pillaging. The quintessential cowboy, John Wayne, became the iconically hated figure of the left.

Wayne was vilified both onscreen and off by the cultural “elites” who had found their perfect "white male" and imputed to him all of their ugliest epithets and behavioral descriptions regarding "white male toxicity”: “My date went all John Wayne last night at the bar" was an epigram for male aggression and violence. “Yeah, they are John Wayne Patriotic Types,” was code for “American Patriotism is for rubes and simpletons” etc.

But the death of one industry ushered in the birth of a new one. On that night in 1973, Brando set the stage for the emergence of the poorly educated, generally ignorant Hollywood dilettante. These empty-headed, radical social protest “artists” threaten to leave the country every four years if a Republican is elected President. Unfortunately, they never do, unless it is to visit a $20 million weekend haunt overseas.

But I don't blame them for any of this. I blame a particular species of political animal known as the RINO: “Republican In Name Only.”

The RINO answers the political casting call in the same manner as any actor looking for an opportunity once the casting call goes out. Picture the director casting his movie and barking out: “OK folks, today we are doing a big shoot, we need 40 Indians and 30 cowboys.”

As is obvious, the aspiring cast members don't care whether they are a cowboy or an Indian as long as they get the gig. Neither does the RINO Republican — they just join the party and run for office wherever there is a job opportunity, i.e., an open seat they can win. The RINO has no core conservative conviction; they choose to run because they want the job. Because they are Republican, we think they’re committed to conservative values and a conservative agenda. When they win, they ultimately break our hearts because they make no effort to advance a meaningful conservative legislative agenda. The vacant and hollow RINO has spawned and spread two clichés that have become the refrain of Republicans who are committed to nothing other than remaining in office: "I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal” and “I’m a compassionate conservative.”

Oh ok, I guess that means that without the "compassionate” modifier, Republicans are enthusiastic murderers of the poor. Or that there is no relationship between government spending and social programs. Or worse, they think that they are being "socially liberal” without contemplating the destructive impact that government-forced "social liberalism" has visited upon the American nuclear family and, in a broader sense, The American Way.

For the past 57 years, the RINO mindset has politically ceded the American culture to the “elites." The elites are now in clear control of the culture. As a result, politics as a vehicle for the restoration of The American Way is infinitely more challenging. As Andrew Breitbart lucidly stated (and which was often restated by Charles Krauthammer): “Politics is downstream from culture.” In short, control of the culture means control of the political messaging.

My advice to the reader: Let's bring back cowboy movies and get rid of the RINOS.

Each and every one of you must thoroughly vet every office-seeking Republican candidate who is desirous of your vote. It is critical to ensure the candidate is committed to a conservative agenda and, if elected, will take vigorous action instead of merely paying campaign lip service towards the restoration of The American Way.

-Emes

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