About a month ago I started rewatching The West Wing with my girlfriend, right from the beginning. We have since finished all seven seasons – it has been quite the binge. She had never seen the show in its entirety, only a couple episodes here and there. I had watched it start to finish during grad school, while writing my thesis on the U.S presidency (I promise, it really worked out like that).
Watching the show in 2022 is a bizarre experience. With the present state of American politics, you can’t watch it just like any other show; you will quickly find yourself daydreaming and reflecting.
For the uninitiated: The West Wing is a political drama, perhaps the quintessential political drama. The story revolves around the fictional Democratic president Josiah Bartlett and the major figures of his White House staff. Together, the team faces tough legislative battles, terrorist plots, political scandals, supreme court nominations, elections – the tension builds and falls around various pivotal crises. Each season represents roughly one year of the administration. The dialogue is iconic, every episode suffused with witty verbal battles, acronyms and political jargon a-flying. Meanwhile, like any good show, each main character brings their own distinct personalities, an organic cocktail of admirable virtues and frustrating shortcomings. The communications director is moody, a man of sadness and caustic remarks; yet his is the beating idealistic heart of the administration. The press secretary is tall, aloof, and also somewhat sad, yet her charm and steadiness keep the White House on message and in control. The chief of staff is a divorced alcoholic; vicious and effective, fiercely protective of the president, he has the best smile on the show. The deputy chief of staff is the pure political animal, with looks of disbelief and despair that never fail to earn a laugh; he is also defined by trauma, the fear of disappointing people, and, well, a different kind of sadness.
What can I say, there’s a lot of sadness to go around.
But there’s also President Bartlett! The man is a vision. A paragon of virtue, genius, political ingenuity, and down-to-earth human kindness. He has flaws, too, he lies and makes mistakes. But most of the time he’s like the goofy grandpa, just too damn loveable. And every now and then, he’ll have a moment, a monologue or an exchange, that hits like lightning.
Through it all, the show is a peculiar mix of gritty realism and soaring idealism. It is incredibly on-point with how it presents issues and policy debates. It isn’t afraid to get technical, and it beautifully captures the chaotic art of getting legislation turned into law. Yet the emotional and thematic core of The West Wing is a remarkably optimistic vision of politics in America. Indeed, many have criticized the show as a sappy liberal fantasy born out of the increasingly cynical and polarized 1990s.
Almost everyone, from both parties, is inherently well-intentioned and noble. There aren’t really ‘villains.’ Sure there are corrupt lobbyists and small politicians, but these mostly feel like part of the background, a Washington given, rather than a driving force behind events.
Show creator Aaron Sorkin clearly took pains to avoid the lowest denominator, to try and portray the Beltway’s good and great. Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but between episodes I swear I almost heard him whispering:
“This is what a president could be like, this is what Congress could achieve, this is the kind of country we could be.”
For my part, it’s impossible not to whisper along. It is impossible not to compare this fiction with our reality. And I suspect any other left-leaning individual obsessed with politics similarly hums along, happy living in the fantasy world of Democratic President Bartlett, however briefly.
In a lot of ways, it represents a piece of history, a show changing and evolving along with the country it is based on. We get to see the administration struggle to come to grips with terrorism, right around the same time many real-life Americans were too. We get to see the post-Cold War struggle, where America, unchallenged hegemon, is caught somewhere between idealism and realpolitik. The characters make bold proclamations about doing the right thing and fighting for democracy and human rights overseas because ‘no one else will.’ In certain episodes, the script feels positively soaked in high-minded, ‘end of history’ morality. If only we have good people making good decisions, we can make right out of the most intractable wrongs.
After Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hard not to cringe at these expressions of confidence. And while we sigh at the naivete, we silently wish it were so.
Bipartisanship is another theme of the show. Compromise and mutual-reasonableness pervade. There are vicious political battles and painfully-familiar bigots. But this is a world where the good guys mostly win, and polarization is mostly underpinned by rational disagreements. The show tells us that this is how democracy works, this is what it creates. It tells us, pretty explicitly, that the voters get to decide what matters, and that they generally have a pretty good grip on what matters. Through seven seasons, democracy, even at its most combative, is presented as a noble sport. After all the tricks and savvy, when the dust has settled, the sun rises on a stronger, more unified America.
Having just witnessed insurrectionists storm the Capitol, threatening to lynch public officials and ‘save’ the country, I found myself struggling with this rosy depiction. With how many voters currently believe that the last election was stolen, and with the meteoric rise of culture war politics, I struggle to kneel before the alter of democracy.
After years of malaise and polarization, maybe we have lost that stronger, more unified America forever. Maybe we never had it, and I’m succumbing to nostalgia to think that The West Wing captures something real. I suppose each viewer decides for themselves.
There have been great and virtuous presidents, leaders to match President Bartlett’s moments of lightning. I don’t know if we’ll ever have such a president again. But if nothing else, The West Wing always leaves me silently turning over the same few words: that’s what I’ll be waiting for.
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