The American left’s culture war isn’t just on the West; it’s on “the Western” too. It is because America embodies the West’s values – far more than Europe, from which these once sprang – and has long idolized those of the American West. In fact, I offer that if “the Western” still prevailed in American entertainment, the American left would not. Once upon a time – and for a very long time and not so long ago – American entertainment was “the Western.” American movies, radio, music, literature, and television were all dominated by the genre. This dominance lasted from virtually each medium’s American origins well into the 1970s. While some actors could make their living doing virtually nothing but Westerns (John Wayne and Gene Autry at two ends of the Western spectrum, with countless others