Turner Classic Movies is arguably the most worthwhile station on television. It features films that are of proven historical, cultural, or artistic value. While the pace of dialogue, plot development, and film editing of these older films is slower than what most of us are used to, the rewards are great if we are patient. Recently I watched the 1952 film “Viva Zapata,” starring Marlon Brando, directed by Elia Kazan. It is the inspiration for this essay.

“Viva Zapata” is the fictional story of an early 20th century Mexican revolutionary who leads his people – poor peasants – to an uprising against an oppressive government. Ultimately, he finds himself trapped between two competing political forces, both corrupt. Zapata becomes a martyr, his death an eternal inspiration for the people who followed him.

Near the end of the film, Zapata understands his fate. Despite protests from his lover, Josefa, he must stand alone and walk forth into a certain death trap.

Josefa: I don’t speak for myself now, but if anything happens to you, what would become of the people? What would they have left?

Emiliano Zapata: Themselves.

Josefa: And all the fighting and the deaths… what has really changed?

Emiliano Zapata: They have really changed. That’s how things really change – slowly – through people. They don’t really need me anymore.

Josefa: They have to be led.

Emiliano Zapata: Yes, but by each other. A strong man makes a weak people. Strong people don’t need a strong man.

In America today, extreme political viewpoints run rampant. There are millions of citizens who feel their constitutional rights are being eroded, and that the American government is corrupt.

Circulating among these dissidents is a kind of collective nostalgia – a feeling that America has fallen from Grace. This sentiment is fueled by economic woes – the cost of living has risen, and many folks often can’t afford what they had in the past. They have decided that to avoid catastrophe we need to somehow turn back time. They want to make America great again, and they strongly believe they have found the champion who will lead them back to better days.

But I have to ask: what exactly is this Great America whence we strayed?

Is it the America of the 18th and 19th centuries, when slavery was the economic backbone of the nation and human rights were denied to people because their “race” was not quite human? Or when hatred reigned supreme during the first half of the 20th century as men disguised in white sheets lynched Blacks and burned churches all across the South?

Or is it found in earlier times when America was coming of age, cutting the European umbilical cord, and expanding westward to conquer Native people with pox-infected blankets and scorched earth battle tactics? Or, in our adolescence, herding them like cattle into remote, barren regions of Oklahoma, and finally massacring them at Sands Creek and Wounded Knee?

Is it the America that herded innocent Japanese American citizens en masse into internment camps during World War II for fear they were spies? Or the America that employed chemical warfare (Agent Orange) as a modern day scorched earth policy in Vietnam?

Of course those were some of the darkest chapters in our history. I’m thinking that the most common perception of Great America is set during the post WWII era when the country was energized as the new world power and the mission was to grow the population as a way to grow the economy. To our modern-day rebels, those were the good old days when men were men and all others were in their rightful place.

Not all Americans experienced the bliss of the 1950s, and TV shows like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver did not reflect reality in America. Women, still broadly regarded as the property of men, felt obliged to reproduce, and new chemical treatments were developed to make them more fertile (some of which later proved to cause birth defects). Blacks and other minorities lived in the margins of society, not experiencing the freedoms granted to others.

Despite our checkered past, I would argue that America is indeed still the greatest nation on earth. Our institutions have provided a pathway to the truth, and the wheels of justice have prevailed, even though it often takes a very long time. We always seem to find a way to overcome adversity, and I believe that our unique strength lies in the diversity of our people.

It is a diverse scientific and technological community that has led us into outer space and out of pandemics like Covid. It is a diverse artistic community that made us the greatest producers of film, art, and music in the world. It is a diverse athletic community that has made us a perennial olympic powerhouse. It is our diverse education system that encourages us to understand different points of view and expand our universal and spiritual awareness.

I hark back to the message of Emiliano Zapata: In today’s context, Vladimir Putin and Kim Yong Un are strongman leaders – dictators who are immune from accountability. Thus, their people are weak and live without freedom or dignity.

It is fitting that the screenplay for “Viva Zapata” was co-written by John Steinbeck. In his great American novel “Grapes of Wrath,” Steinbeck follows the Joad family as they struggle to survive through epic corporate/government failures – the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. If there is a silver lining in Steinbeck’s realism, it has something to do with how people can come together and support each other in situations that seem hopeless. It highlights the idea that strength comes in unity, not division.

Compared to the Joads and real people who have suffered real hardship, most of our modern day dissidents are merely inconvenienced. And their champion of retribution – the one who will save them from the enemy within – is someone ill-equipped to save anyone other than himself.

Pete Howard is the author of The Hourglass Pendant and other Paul James Mysteries. He lives in Dunkirk and teaches ELA at Northern Chautauqua Catholic School. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com