As one other terrifyingly important presidential election nears, it’s arduous to not fantasize about how various things could possibly be. Think about, for example, having a president who put deeply held values above the pressures of their greatest donors. Think about one who was in a position to actually hear and be taught when confronted with points they didn’t perceive moderately than adhere to no matter stance occurred to be essentially the most politically handy on the time. Think about, even, a president who impressed you, who made you’re feeling a glow of patriotism, skeptical as you is perhaps of the idea. In brief, think about Josiah Edward “Jed” Bartlet, president of america as envisioned by Aaron Sorkin and dropped at life by Martin Sheen throughout seven seasons of the award-winning and critically acclaimed NBC collection “The West Wing.”
Two of the present’s solid members, Melissa Fitzgerald (who performed Carol Fitzpatrick, assistant to the White Home press secretary) and Mary McCormack (who performed deputy nationwide safety advisor Kate Harper), actually nonetheless consider within the present’s sticking energy in addition to its general constructive framing of politics. They’ve written a e-book about it that’s plainly geared towards present followers of the present: “What’s Subsequent: A Backstage Go to the West Wing, Its Solid and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service.”
Look, it’s true: Once in a while, I make scorching chocolate in my “Bartlet for America” mug and sip it wistfully, imagining a world during which we’d had a President Bartlet as a substitute of a second President Bush, maybe adopted by a President Santos — the character performed by Jimmy Smits who had sweeping, actually impressed schooling reform plans. It’s a stunning dream, a White Home that’s extra “West Wing” and fewer “Veep,” useful and practically scandal-free, earnestly devoted to bettering the lives of on a regular basis People by doing the sluggish but important work of coverage change.
Sure, I do know that is extraordinarily naive; sure, I’m conscious that Bartlet was problematic in loads of methods, as had been his staffers; and sure, I do know that “The West Wing” was, in some ways, a liberal fever dream that purchased into American exceptionalism and the beliefs of patriotism. However that’s simply it: The present was a fantasy, one which gestured at an concept of how issues could possibly be, however that wasn’t attempting to assert that this was how issues actually had been. Sorkin himself insisted that “in the beginning, if not solely, that is leisure. ‘The West Wing’ isn’t meant to be good for you. … Our duty is to captivate you for nonetheless lengthy we’ve requested in your consideration.”
And entertain us it did, throughout greater than 150 episodes, some extra memorable than others, however all together with at the least one rousing monologue that made this viewer, at the least, consider in the potential of a authorities that actually works, or that actually tries to work, or that actually desires to work. It helps that I first watched bits of it as a tween, lengthy earlier than I’d moved to the States, when my journeys to California had been strictly household visits throughout which I used to be cherished and spoiled by my grandparents and aunts with as a lot frozen yogurt as I wished, unrestricted TV time throughout which I loved extra channels than I knew what to do with and endlessly fascinating commercials for toys I’d by no means get, and better of all, bookstores so giant I may get misplaced in them. It felt like a extra harmless time.
However, in fact, it wasn’t. “The West Wing” was airing as George W. Bush took workplace following a detailed and contested election. It was on TV when 9/11 occurred, because the Patriot Act was signed, and because the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had been launched. The present provided a rosy various, which appealed particularly to a sure earnings bracket; its greatest chunk of viewers, according to a 2001 study, had been incomes greater than $70,000 a 12 months — or, in in the present day’s cash, greater than $120,000. Largely sheltered from systemic injustices contributing to and caused by poverty, prosperous individuals skilled fewer of our authorities’s shortcomings and possibly discovered the present’s imaginative and prescient extra believable than it was.
As a (moderately sheepish) devotee of the present, I purchased into it too, particularly the primary couple of instances I watched it entrance to again, in my late teenagers and early 20s. It managed to make the American political course of — which I discovered deeply baffling, having by no means discovered the way it labored at school — thrilling. Partially, I’m certain, it was the velocity of the quippy dialogue, which Sorkin is known for, in addition to the best way the present was shot, its lengthy walk-and-talk scenes lending a way of urgency to issues of dry coverage. The humor was useful too, and generally academic. I’ll always remember the Big Block of Cheese Day episode throughout which deputy communications director Sam Seaborn is required to meet with a ufologist — and Press Secretary C.J. Cregg and Deputy Chief of Employees Josh Lyman be taught (together with the remainder of us) that the maps we’ve all grown up with are both imperialistic and frankly just wrong.
However as humorous and provoking (usually on the identical time, as within the good two-parter “20 Hours in America”) because the present might be, there are evident points in it. Once I rewatched it extra just lately, I used to be extremely disturbed, for example, by the dynamic between Lyman and his assistant, Donna Moss. What was framed as a cute “will they/gained’t they” relationship between boss and devoted worker now learn to me as not solely extraordinarily unprofessional however even downright abusive, with Donna bearing the brunt of Josh’s mood tantrums and placing up with being continuously belittled by him. But it surely’s greater than the interpersonal dynamics; the present’s often over-the-top optimism and honest perception in america as the best nation on Earth — to not point out its very white casting and informal but constant sexism — has, talking anecdotally, made it really feel cringey to many leftists of my technology.
The outdated critiques concerning the present’s idealism nonetheless ring true. Cynicism about and frustration with the sluggish gears of presidency have possible all the time existed all through the left-right spectrum. Now, with social media including a second-by-second commentary on an already speedy 24-hour information cycle, these sentiments really feel a lot louder and extra seen.
The authors of “What’s Subsequent” don’t handle the methods the present has aged poorly. They’re as a substitute relentless in pointing to its positives, and to be truthful, when it was initially airing there was no different TV present depicting authorities features, and so the insurance policies that “The West Wing” explored had been possible eye-opening to a lot of its viewers. An episode within the first season, for example, features a compelling argument for monetary reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black individuals, an idea as outdated as abolition however which loads of the present’s viewers may need by no means encountered earlier than.
This specific instance isn’t talked about within the e-book, although, which focuses as a substitute on the broad concept of service and lionizes the present’s solid members for his or her varied social and political activism. Many have labored to help veterans and therapy courts, which emphasize rehabilitation for people with substance use problems. “What’s Subsequent” is a cheerleading textual content, a enjoyable and breezy learn that doesn’t delve into any cringe elements or difficulties on set.
However “The West Wing” would, like nearly any piece of tolerating media, solely endure from an insistence that it’s good. The present is a messy piece of very entertaining — and infrequently academic — tv, stuffed with extraordinarily gifted actors giving unbelievable performances, but it surely’s not a street map for actuality, nor ought to it’s.
After President Biden’s debate debacle this summer time, the present’s creator, Sorkin, penned a bizarre op-ed suggesting that the Democrats nominate Mitt Romney, a average Republican, for president, a method to poach sufficient conservative voters to maintain former President Trump from regaining energy. However when Biden stepped out of the race, Sorkin rapidly took again the suggestion. His op-ed was, relying on whom you requested, a irritating or entertaining thought experiment, but it surely ought to by no means have been seen as actual recommendation for the true world. Like “The West Wing,” it was a break from actuality.
Ilana Masad is a books and tradition critic and creator of “All My Mom’s Lovers.”
