3:10 to Yuma

The classic Western, and our moral moment. Spoiler alert!

Americans of my vintage were raised on Westerns. Looking at the Wiki page on TV westerns, it is astounding how many there were, and that isn't even counting their science fiction progeny. I recently watched a classic- 3:10 to Yuma, which is unbearably tense, beautifully shot and acted, and just a crystaline example of the form. It reminded me of the morality that lies at the heart of the American experience. 

Glen Ford (as Ben Wade) heads a gang of outlaws who rob a stagecoach and kill its drivers. Local farmer Dan Evans (played by Van Hefflin) witnesses this with his two sons, and stands clear. Later, the marshal and the owner of the stagecoach line (Mr. Butterfield) capture Wade, who has boldly wandered into town, and get up a posse, which includes farmer Dan Evans, to bundle him off to justice in Yuma. Only, the rest of the gang is still out there, and is ready to shoot whoever stands in the way of getting their leader back. Various plot twists later, Ben is being guarded by Dan in a hotel room close to the Yuma train stop, waiting for the train to come through. 

Glen Ford plays Wade as Satan incarnate- a smooth talking, woman seducing, suave and heartless killer. He keeps up a patter of warnings and blandishments to Dan, telling him that the rest of the posse will desert him (they do) and that Butterfield will also desert him (he does), as Wade's gang closes in around town. 

It is a morality play of power in its most corrupt form, vs civilization and decency. Evans has built a homestead and a family, with salt-of-the-earth wife Alice. Filmed in starkly beautiful black and white, the morality is likewise stark. Yet out here, in the real world, we suddenly are faced with a government that proudly wears the black hats, killing the innocent (and lying about it) and reveling in extortion across the domestic and foreign landscapes. A government that makes a principle of bad policy, selling out our future for donations from the oil industry, and straining every nerve enrich the rich, particularly cronies, and impoverish and denigrate the poor.

It is noteworthy that religion has no role in 3:10 to Yuma. The morality, good and bad, needs no reference to the supposed foundations of morality, sources in higher powers, or advice from clergy. No, morality is, in truth, a secular process, needing only eyes to see and a heart to feel. What is more, our current political depravity has been largely brought about by religious communities, out of their false sense of desperation and victimization. They have hitched their wagon out of grievance over losing the culture wars- to women who can not understand why they should be second class citizens, to minorities, who can not understand why they should be forever trodden upon, to scientists, who won the Dover decision that said that facts, not theology under any guise or subterfuge, should be taught in schools, and to Hollywood, which leads all too often with empathy and inclusion.

For the secret ingredient in all this is truth. 3:10 to Yuma shows how morality is about truth- who has power and how it is used, who is willing to look it in the eye and stand up to it. The first step of predators like our current administration is to gaslight the population, making white black and black, white. The president's every utterance is an exercise in projection, blaming others for his own defects, especially moral ones, to excuse his own depravity. Resistance means sticking to the truth. While predators are only possible in a society that is generally truthful and moral, (since a society of predators would have no one to rob or anything to take), they can only exist if that society is blinded to their true nature, or cowed by their power.

The president may have learned his methods of lying in real estate, but his base learned it in religion. When faith and authority are the standard, truth takes a back seat. Victimization narratives run rampant, when religions are merely up against people who have a higher standard of truth than they do. That includes empathy, which is a form of truth- that of recognizing the true existence of others and extending to them the decency / respect of allowing them their own perspectives and feelings. The evangelical base is so aggrieved by the decline of religion and its (rightful) dismissal by liberal, thinking people, that it is clearly willing to throw all other principles to the wind. They have made a corrupt bargain for power, with a man who hasn't a particle of moral, let alone religious, feeling, and whose greed degrades everything he touches. One would have thought that the base had learned a lesson from their support of George W. Bush, who made tax cuts for the rich and foreign debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan his contribution to American history. No, the evangelical base, triggered by the reign of Barack Obama, doubled down, and is fully on the side of the devil now.

3:10 to Yuma does not deserve its happy ending. But the movie is not about the reality of gunmen and shooting angles. It is about character, and the limit reached by good people when faced with evil people. The settlers of the West were hardly unblemished, trampling as they did in the wake of exterminated and displaced Indians. But in the national mythos that I grew up with, they were the quiet and courageous builders who brought law to wild regions and grappled with the many dimensions of building a new society. They overcame corrupt ranchers, shady miners, gunslingers and gangsters to make the placid Midwest and western farming regions we know today. To think that their descendents would so forsake these principles on the altar of tin-pot fascism is truly hard to fathom.

• Policy, schmolisy- who wants so much thinking?
• Populism? Not really.
• Fascism in practice- the linkage of every policy, every lever, and every decision to corrupt intent.
• It is probably unwise for ICE officers to jump in front of SUVs ordered to leave a scene.
• Jellyfish sleep too.