It is not comforting to be told that almost everyone in DC is earnest and sincere. Ideology is a much more pernicious issue than greed because at least with greed and the desire for power you have some possibility of getting rid of bad incentives and adding in good ones to influence behavior.
I never watched the show, so don't have an opinion except by third-hand.
What has stuck with me all these years later is remembering the large the number of people I know personally and those I encountered online who lamented how they wished the Bush administration was like the West Wing. And these were all people who did not like the Bush administration.
The point about presidents often being moderate outsiders is interesting. It reminds me of something I heard about why people like certain music, often because it's mostly familiar but with a little twist of originality. If you make something truly different, it's just too foreign for most people.
What this brings to mind is the Overton Window. If the president has to have relatively familiar ideas, then making them feel familiar and reasonable is a big part of the battle. As we're sort of seeing with the YIMBY movement, at least in California, sometimes you have to spend your years or decades shouting in the wilderness to get people somewhat comfortable with a policy before you can take your shots and enact it.
I think a lot of criticisms of West Wing just sort of forget how much the show was reflective of not just political reality of the time in the 90s, but accepted political wisdom of the moment.
The most banal example, the reason Bartlett had a hostile Congress to deal with during the life of the show is...Clinton had a hostile Congress to deal with during the life of the show.
But also mid to late 90s was basically the apogee of Clintononian triangulation/Neo-liberalism/World is Flat politics. The plotline where the Bartlett administration tries to figure out a path to entitlement reform and cutting social security gets cited a lot (including here) as Sorkin being some secret centrist shill or something, but honestly circa 1996-1999; in looking at what actually passed, would it have been all that shocking if some social security reform bill passed that involved cutting benefits? There's a reason GWB though pursued his social security privatization plan; given realities of Clinton second term it didn't seem entirely far fetched.
"This constitutional provision has been the source of mischief at various times in American history, most notably when it led to the ascension of Andrew Johnson into the White House with a policy agenda that was very different from the course the Lincoln administration was pursuing. We also had similar, albeit smaller, changes in policy direction due to the untimely deaths of William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor."
What about JFK and LBJ? Wasn't JFK a very moderate democrat with a rather limited and pro-business agenda, and LBJ shifted policy direction substantially to be more friendly to civil rights and of course the Great Society? That seems like it should also be mentioned here.
I know way less about the intricacies of politics than our host, but it seems to me that the most realistic portrayal of politics (reminder: we're grading heavily on a curve) I've seen on TV is the first season or two of Borgen. It's mostly earnest, but there's a fair bit of cynicism mixed in and the whole thing has a very distinct "pushing a giant boulder slowly up a hill" feeling, which seems like it's probably what working in politics actually feels like a lot of the time.
That feeling largely evaporates after the second season, though. I still like seasons 3 and 4 but the this-feels-maybe-kinda-realistic vibe is gone.
The West Wing was actually really good was everyone's consensus opinion prior to Trump. Then somehow it was the most unpopular show ever and no journalist or politician on Twitter had ever liked it. This was one of the things that made me really understand the discourse had changed in some odd ways.
I don't really like The West Wing but this is a good article and, in combination with many of the comments here, hits the nail on most of the head. The one little piece I think it's missing is that some portion of the anti-WW sentiment from the left isn't about realism but because they *agree* with Matt on what the point of the show is (taking the emblems of the American state and associating them with liberal ideas) but a central part of their aesthetic is having distaste for the emblems of the American state.
Anyone remember "K Street" (the HBO series)? Starred Carville and Matalin (playing fictionalized versions of themselves?). I thought it was excellent. HBO pulled the plug after a single season.
The West Wing was indeed an excellent show. And often a very accurate one.
Hollywood writers and producers often prefer shows like "House of Cards" because they're more comfortable with the cynical view of US politics. The actual reality—that DC is filled with dead-eyed zealots and true believers not primarily driven by money—is too scary for them to grapple with.
One moment that I think stood out to me from watching WW was that they "saved SS" during the show, but it only happened because the WH agreed not to take any credit! WW had secret congress!
I think “The Thick of It” works a a caustic parody of New Labour and (even more specifically) of Blair’s communications team - you never see the PM or high level ministers. Iannucci’s formula makes less sense in Veep.
I know it was just a footnote, but the fact that the three VP's who took over were all more pro-slavery is an interesting one. My understanding (quite limited, to be sure) of those presidential elections is that the candidates needed to have pro-slavery VP's as a signal that while they were anti-slavery for their respective times, it wasn't the foundation of their campaigns and they would be slow and incremental in their approach to slavery, and not flame-throwers. The ascension of Andrew Johnson brings into it the entire Reconstruction, and obviously ends the Lincoln presidency, so is more impactful to the arc of American history. But writ large, I am not sure there is much that changed wildly from the other successions.
It is not comforting to be told that almost everyone in DC is earnest and sincere. Ideology is a much more pernicious issue than greed because at least with greed and the desire for power you have some possibility of getting rid of bad incentives and adding in good ones to influence behavior.
Oh gosh, I loved the West Wing!
I never watched the show, so don't have an opinion except by third-hand.
What has stuck with me all these years later is remembering the large the number of people I know personally and those I encountered online who lamented how they wished the Bush administration was like the West Wing. And these were all people who did not like the Bush administration.
The point about presidents often being moderate outsiders is interesting. It reminds me of something I heard about why people like certain music, often because it's mostly familiar but with a little twist of originality. If you make something truly different, it's just too foreign for most people.
What this brings to mind is the Overton Window. If the president has to have relatively familiar ideas, then making them feel familiar and reasonable is a big part of the battle. As we're sort of seeing with the YIMBY movement, at least in California, sometimes you have to spend your years or decades shouting in the wilderness to get people somewhat comfortable with a policy before you can take your shots and enact it.
I think a lot of criticisms of West Wing just sort of forget how much the show was reflective of not just political reality of the time in the 90s, but accepted political wisdom of the moment.
The most banal example, the reason Bartlett had a hostile Congress to deal with during the life of the show is...Clinton had a hostile Congress to deal with during the life of the show.
But also mid to late 90s was basically the apogee of Clintononian triangulation/Neo-liberalism/World is Flat politics. The plotline where the Bartlett administration tries to figure out a path to entitlement reform and cutting social security gets cited a lot (including here) as Sorkin being some secret centrist shill or something, but honestly circa 1996-1999; in looking at what actually passed, would it have been all that shocking if some social security reform bill passed that involved cutting benefits? There's a reason GWB though pursued his social security privatization plan; given realities of Clinton second term it didn't seem entirely far fetched.
In the Loop! Great movie.
You probably ought to correct your Santos reference in graf 13 to "George" sted "Matt," but who knows? That might be his real name...
"This constitutional provision has been the source of mischief at various times in American history, most notably when it led to the ascension of Andrew Johnson into the White House with a policy agenda that was very different from the course the Lincoln administration was pursuing. We also had similar, albeit smaller, changes in policy direction due to the untimely deaths of William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor."
What about JFK and LBJ? Wasn't JFK a very moderate democrat with a rather limited and pro-business agenda, and LBJ shifted policy direction substantially to be more friendly to civil rights and of course the Great Society? That seems like it should also be mentioned here.
I know way less about the intricacies of politics than our host, but it seems to me that the most realistic portrayal of politics (reminder: we're grading heavily on a curve) I've seen on TV is the first season or two of Borgen. It's mostly earnest, but there's a fair bit of cynicism mixed in and the whole thing has a very distinct "pushing a giant boulder slowly up a hill" feeling, which seems like it's probably what working in politics actually feels like a lot of the time.
That feeling largely evaporates after the second season, though. I still like seasons 3 and 4 but the this-feels-maybe-kinda-realistic vibe is gone.
The West Wing was actually really good was everyone's consensus opinion prior to Trump. Then somehow it was the most unpopular show ever and no journalist or politician on Twitter had ever liked it. This was one of the things that made me really understand the discourse had changed in some odd ways.
I don't really like The West Wing but this is a good article and, in combination with many of the comments here, hits the nail on most of the head. The one little piece I think it's missing is that some portion of the anti-WW sentiment from the left isn't about realism but because they *agree* with Matt on what the point of the show is (taking the emblems of the American state and associating them with liberal ideas) but a central part of their aesthetic is having distaste for the emblems of the American state.
Anyone remember "K Street" (the HBO series)? Starred Carville and Matalin (playing fictionalized versions of themselves?). I thought it was excellent. HBO pulled the plug after a single season.
The West Wing was indeed an excellent show. And often a very accurate one.
Hollywood writers and producers often prefer shows like "House of Cards" because they're more comfortable with the cynical view of US politics. The actual reality—that DC is filled with dead-eyed zealots and true believers not primarily driven by money—is too scary for them to grapple with.
One moment that I think stood out to me from watching WW was that they "saved SS" during the show, but it only happened because the WH agreed not to take any credit! WW had secret congress!
I think “The Thick of It” works a a caustic parody of New Labour and (even more specifically) of Blair’s communications team - you never see the PM or high level ministers. Iannucci’s formula makes less sense in Veep.
I know it was just a footnote, but the fact that the three VP's who took over were all more pro-slavery is an interesting one. My understanding (quite limited, to be sure) of those presidential elections is that the candidates needed to have pro-slavery VP's as a signal that while they were anti-slavery for their respective times, it wasn't the foundation of their campaigns and they would be slow and incremental in their approach to slavery, and not flame-throwers. The ascension of Andrew Johnson brings into it the entire Reconstruction, and obviously ends the Lincoln presidency, so is more impactful to the arc of American history. But writ large, I am not sure there is much that changed wildly from the other successions.