The Last John Wayne.

There was a time when America’s idea of a man was a square-jawed hero who stood tall in the saddle, squinted into the horizon, and muttered something gritty about duty and fighting for what’s right. Quite often that hero was John Wayne. John Wayne was a myth made flesh, the walking, talking unflinching embodiment of American masculinity. He was The Duke. And The Duke was a symbol of certainty in an uncertain world.

Except he wasn’t. John Wayne was just an actor; a fraud. Because in truth, John Wayne wasn't even John Wayne. Christened Marion Robert Morrison, he claimed his parents changed his name to Marion Michael Morrison before he adopted his famous moniker. There is no evidence to support this. He had no formal training as an actor, so as he constructed his mythical hero he claimed to always play himself, that he was a "reactor" rather than an actor. But the whole John Wayne character was just that, an act; "I figured I needed a gimmick," he disclosed to an interviewer, "so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror." Regardless of the character John Wayne projected on screen, Marion Robert Morrison was a draft-dodging, drunken, adulterous, racist homophobe who, in a May 1971 Playboy interview, expressed support for the Vietnam War and a belief in white supremacy. That interview resurfaced in 2016 when his daughter, Aissa Wayne, at an event at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum, endorsed the presidential campaign of... Donald Trump.

The Cowboy President Without the Horse

Trump, much like Wayne, who he idolises, is a performance artist. A swaggering, chest-thumping character who exists largely in the minds of those desperate to believe in him. He doesn’t wear a Stetson, but he sells the same fantasy: that America was once great, that men were once real men, and that the world was better when things were simpler. His rants are a psychological mirror image of Hollywood westerns, long monologues peppered with cartoonish villains and simplistic solutions, all written for an audience eager for a hero to do society's heavy lifting on their behalf.

But just like Wayne, Trump is all talk and no trousers.

John Wayne played imaginary soldiers; Trump dodged Vietnam with "bone spurs". Where Wayne built his career pretending to be fearless and practising his walk in the mirror, Trump built his pretending to be rich, losing his father's money. Both men traded in nostalgia, banking on a longing for a return to a world that never really existed, or if it did, only for a privileged elite. Both men turn out to be as shallow as their shadows.

Vietnam War Demo

Wayne, despite his towering persona, was haunted by the awakening of America's social conscience; the civil rights movement, feminism, and the opposition to the Vietnam War. He founded and became president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an archly Conservative political organization. He was a raving McCarthyite, promoting a blacklist of allegedly 'communist' actors in (or forced out of) Hollywood. That infamous 1971 Playboy interview revealed a man clinging desperately to an American dream that was slipping through his fingers. “I believe in white supremacy,” he spat, as if saying it loudly enough could stop progress in its tracks.

Trump? He’s been giving the same interview for decades. The words shift, but the message is the same: the world is changing, and he doesn’t like it. His grievances are well-worn, but the lows keep getting lower. He launched his 2016 campaign calling Mexicans “rapists” and spent his presidency stoking racial division. After white supremacists marched with torches in Charlottesville, he downplayed the reaction, banally suggesting there were "very fine people on both sides". He mocked a disabled reporter, boasted about sexually assaulting women, and suggested injecting bleach as a cure for COVID-19. He took an oath to defend the Constitution, then incited a mob to attack it. And when all else failed, he did what Wayne never could - he ran. While his supporters stormed the Capitol, he hid in the White House bunker, sulking as his supporters tried to trample America's democracy.

The resurrected Trump 2.0 is lashing out in his desperation to establish his and America's machismo, slipping from the square jawed hero to the wild-eyed madman. In just the opening days of his second term, he has already begun tearing at the seams of that democracy with a vengeance. He’s stacked his cabinet with loyalists eager to dismantle protective institutions, purged federal agencies of anyone deemed disloyal or otherwise "wrong", and openly discussed using the Department of Justice to prosecute his political enemies. Immigrants are once again in his sights, with sweeping deportations and mass detention camps already in motion. And as the world watches in alarm, he remains fixated not on governing, but on vengeance - demanding retribution against journalists, judges, and anyone else who ever stood in his way. It is Trump's "Last Stand".

The Final Scene

John Wayne's America is dead. Even as Trump basks in front of his idol's films on lazy Sundays, mopping his fevered brow, those films no longer resonate as they once did. The mythology has moved on. America’s heroes don’t wear white hats anymore, and the idea of a lone gunslinger solving problems with a six-shooter is absurd in a world of climate collapse, economic precarity, social media and mass surveillance.

Trump, in many ways, is the last gasp of that old mythology. The final, bloated sequel to a franchise that should have ended years ago. The aging cowboy who can’t quite ride off into the sunset because he doesn’t know when to quit. Blinded by his own ego, he doesn’t see that the sycophants he’s surrounded himself with will abandon him the moment the winds change.

But here’s the thing about last acts: they mean something new is coming.

John Wayne’s death in 1979 didn’t stop Hollywood from evolving. The old guard gave way to new voices, new perspectives, new stories. And Trump’s inevitable departure - at the end of his term or through legal troubles, or sheer biological reality - won’t stop America from moving forward.

Yes, he will do enormous damage in the meantime, but if history teaches us anything, it’s that myths don’t last forever. Fascism always faces a backlash: the minorities it disenfranchises multiply until eventually it turns on the very people it claims to protect. American fascism will be no exception.

Maybe, just maybe, Trump really is the last John Wayne.

And that means things can only get better post-Trump.