"Most fictional depictions of D.C. life show it as a super cynical place full of power-hungry schemers who don’t care about anything. This is a convenient device for a certain kind of thriller, but it’s extremely fake."
I want to see a high quality dramatization of the Iran-Contra affair. That was a very interesting time, with the CIA waging brutal covert wars in Central America, and the US President getting away with stuff that merited his removal from office. And the people who plotted and planned Iran-Contra were not power mad cynics but people who were willing to do terrible things for what they saw as the good of the US.
> it rapidly became an article of faith in the Berniesphere that Sanders himself was wrong about this and the West Wing fandom in fact represented everything that was corrupt and bad about the Democratic Party
I think this faith results from the enticing simplicity of the corruption theory as well as its congruence with our intuition about human affairs. Our brains evolved in an environment consisting of small tribes where a few people could have a significant impact. We therefore naturally want to identify the key actors and their motives that conflict with our goals when society doesn’t function as we desire.
Hence these conspiracy theories have an intrinsic advantage in the “marketplace of ideas.” In contrast, the failings of well-intentioned bureaucrats requires understanding the management structure and incentives of complex, non-intuitive institutions.
Similarly, we struggle to comprehend the diverse interests and sincere beliefs of our country’s legislative representatives and their ever-shifting alliances. It’s hard enough for us to understand how individual people can have radically different models of reality than ourselves, yet alone project that onto large groups of people.
So we fall back on simple narratives centered on a few corrupt villains.
I think “The West Wing” is for a certain generation of political types like what “Law & Order” was for lawyers of my generation.
Although its depiction of the practice of law was completely unrealistic, it was the first law show I can think of where the lawyers actually *practiced law.* Perry Mason and Matlock and so on were basically just detectives in the Holmes/Poirot model, with the trial simply a forum for the detective-novel denouement, and shows like LA Law were basically just soap operas. The “lawyer” portion of L&O at least resembled what lawyers understand themselves as doing—there was real focus on the individual elements of the crimes (issues like intent and causation, analyzed totally separately from “who fired the gun”), on how the evidence satisfies each of those elements, and on procedural stuff like motions practice, or the fact that so many of the cases end in pleas. Was it realistic? Of course not—but it was still light years from what was previously depicted. And whenever I talk to fellow lawyers, they’ll acknowledge that yeah, the vibes are nothing like L&O…but they all watched the show when they were young.
I suspect there’s something similar in “The West Wing” for politics. Prior depictions of the practice of politics, esp. on TV and movies, are basically “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” type stuff, or inevitably they introduce some CIA black ops BS or it all boils down to some torrid love affair. TWW actually went into some of the nuts and bolts of how policymaking—both substantive stuff like real policies that were being considered at the time and procedural stuff like the role of people like WH Chief of Staff or congressional leadership. So forget about whether it was a “good show about American politics”—it was recognizably “about American politics”, period, in a way that only a few shows before or since have been. So of course political people loved it.
I loved the West Wing and was the right age for it to have a deep impact on what I thought an American President should sound like. One of my favorite things about the show was that the speeches made me proud to be an American, an idea that parts of the Democratic Party has since firmly disavowed.
The Obama years felt like I was finally living the West Wing. Every major speech that Obama gave was something I’d either watch live or tape to watch with friends/family later. His ability to inspire is profoundly missing from politics today. Obama felt like the last Democrat patriot. He, like Bartlett, espoused the idea that Americans had a troubled past and fraught present, but that we were uniquely aspiring for something better and that our practical ethos would allow us to continually move toward a better union.
The early season Sam Seaborn character was also unbelievably inspiring to me. Rob Lowe at his absolute best playing the type of character that I’ve always hoped filled out the offices of every able politician.
I'm surprised that Matt didn't mention what I've seen as the overwhelming criticism of the show on-line for the past 15 years or so -- it fails to show Republicans stomping puppies to death while simultaneously cudgeling doe-eyed orphans in each and every episode.
"It’s typical for a television show to focus heavily on a small cast of characters. The very best television shows like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” tend to break free of this constraint and use the long runtime of television to tell sprawling narratives that wouldn’t fit in a movie."
I think that no TV show did better and was more revolutionary in having a large cast of characters than The Simpsons. The ability of animation to spit out tons of characters that were nonetheless high quality paved the way for South Park and others to do the same.
“It’s a somewhat unappreciated quirk of American history that all three of these presidential deaths shifted public policy in a pro-slavery direction. There is more contingency at work on this issue than most people realize.”
It’s a massively under-appreciated quirk of American history that much, possible most, political change comes from ad hoc reactions to crises. Slavery is the best example of this. It was not abolished through the slow and steady boring of hard boards by abolitionists. Lincoln was not an abolitionist when he took office. In his first inaugural, he offered to amend the constitution to protect slavery in the states where it existed. Slavery was abolished because planters lost their shit over the election of a President who opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories and the transportation of slaves like Dred Scott into free states. The masters refused to compromise, overplayed their hand and lost their human property and, in some cases, their lives.
Northern opinion was radicalized by the war, there weren’t even a significant number of abolitionists in Congress in 1861.
"To be clear, I am not particularly concerned about deficits right now, just as I wasn’t in 2010. But I took Ryan seriously when he said he was... But now, as Ryan prepares to leave Congress, it is clear that his critics were correct and a credulous Washington press corps — including me — that took him at his word was wrong. In the trillions of long-term debt he racked up as speaker, in the anti-poverty proposals he promised but never passed, and in the many lies he told to sell unpopular policies, Ryan proved as much a practitioner of post-truth politics as Donald Trump."
Did anyone else who did not watch the West Wing but enjoyed this post get really confused when Matt brought up “Santos”? I kept thinking George Santos and didn’t know why Matt was so complementary to this description of an Outsider.
Yo Matt, there’s a new Congress that could barely choose a Speaker of the House and might default on the national debt. More importantly, there are a lot of extremely pedestrian takes on said Congress and I’d like to hear a smart one from you. Off news cycle posts can be fun, but please step up to the plate when when there are big events that beg for smart take slinging.
I think the biggest liberal critique of The West Wing is that it has no space for McConnellism (the GOP strategy for accruing power by obstructing Dems at every turn, saying no to any deal, and simply trying to run out the clock). By 2010-11 it was pretty obvious that this is how Republicans would behave towards Obama, yet he still kept trying to make deals with them. Hell, some D members of Congress still haven't gotten this message, hence we're heading for another debt ceiling showdown!
Watching the show now makes it seem hopelessly naive.
I've written about the West Wing in these comments before, not sure how it came up, but I'll once again say that nearly everyone over 30 I spoke with while working in politics/politics adjacent fields as cited the West Wing as inspiration or a favorite show.
In terms of their radicalness, Barlett at one point made some large changes to foreign policy, in a more interventionalist direction, and Santo's education plan was not particular incrementalistic.
That Millhiser piece seems a bit misguided. The Barlett administration having few accomplishments is just the text of the show. He asks: "Or to ensure that every child who does succeed in high school will be able to pay for college?" That was the point of their refundability plan, to help reduce the cost of college, and they do so by removing a tax loophole on CEO compensation. He also says Barlett is inattentive to economic justice but Josh's intro to his campaign is him telling his constituent that he voted against a Dairy Compact because of child poverty.
I agreed that "The Surpremes" is very overrated, I think people just want to like a late season episode, but thats mostly because the writing of the conservative justice, Justice Christopher Mulready, was kind of silly. They want him to seems super objectionable at first and then just kind of hand wave that to get at the idea of a smart liberal and smart conservative arguing about ideas being cool. The point was that Glenn Close's character was that she was the "Liberal Lion" that they could replace the chief justice with rather than just get some middle of the road liberal. The abortion thing was a liability not the point of the nomination. Fun performances but doesn't hold up on later watches.
"A conventional knock on the show is that it makes it seem as if substantive political battles can be won with nice speeches. I think Aaron Sorkin’s movie “The American President” really does that. But “The West Wing” doesn’t — Bartlet simply does not achieve many big changes to American public policy because giving nice speeches doesn’t win substantive political battles"
I think this is correct (and similar to the take I had previously posted here). The speeches people remember are mostly embarrassing conservatives or reacting to great tragedies like the car crash or the bombing. Santos gives the most impactful, plot-wise, speech of the show at the convention.
It should also be mentioned that the West Wing often comes out in support of passionate people on the fringes. Justice Mendoza is presented as much better than the banal but well credentialed choice they had before. The entire plot of "The Surpremes" is based on the idea that smart people arguing ideas is better than simple appointing a compromise justice. When Stackhouse is running in the primary against Barlett they show that his run from the left causes Barlett to take the politically risking stances on needle exchange. He is presented as smart and reasonable even though the cast in angry at him for making the election harder. I think Bernie people might actually enjoy the episodes during this part.
People often try this strange double move against the West Wing where is both a fantasy and also the administration was "actually" not effective but the text of the show is that the people in politics, particularly liberal politics, are smart and passionate but also personally flawed and that despite their virtues it is hard to make progress. Their victories are often compromises, they suffer defeats and they end up thinking about who can continue the fight after their time is up.
(Note: in WW, all characters exclaim the name of the person they’re talking to on a regular basis)
If you’re a has-watched-the-whole-series-6-or-7-times person like me, let me endorse the show (don’t worry - Mandy doesn’t last beyond season 1...you can fight through it) - the future star/cameo watching alone is worth it. I’d also recommend the West Wing Weekly companion podcast. Cohosted by Josh Malina.
My complaints about WW are many but I’ll name these:
1) Bartlett was too often like K9 on Doctor Who (Tom Baker years). In Doctor Who they’d create some totally inescapable trap for the characters...then at the last moment K9 would show up and use a previously un-discussed weapon (a laser cutter or smoke bomb or stun ray) and save the day. On WW they’d create some political Gordian Knot and in the last sequence POTUS would have some all-knowing/all-seeing karate move that he never talked about before...or he’d simply change his mind and decide the knot didn’t need to be untied. What? You weren’t ever going to sell the Aegis cruisers to the Taiwanese?? Wow! Good idea!! That would have been a great thing to tell your *#%ing staff about, Jed! Problem solved!
2) John Goodman’s horrendous Southern accent. It was only 3-4 episodes but it was bad enough to stun a team of oxen in their tracks.
3) John Spencer’s acting - may he rest in peace. Sorry, but search your feelings - you know it’s true. It sounds like he was a great guy...but the Leo role always felt totally miscast to me. Spencer was just never convincing as the ‘ultimate Washington power broker’
PS - I am typing this while simultaneously briskly walking down a crowded hallway, typing comments on 3 other Substack articles.
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.
"Most fictional depictions of D.C. life show it as a super cynical place full of power-hungry schemers who don’t care about anything. This is a convenient device for a certain kind of thriller, but it’s extremely fake."
I want to see a high quality dramatization of the Iran-Contra affair. That was a very interesting time, with the CIA waging brutal covert wars in Central America, and the US President getting away with stuff that merited his removal from office. And the people who plotted and planned Iran-Contra were not power mad cynics but people who were willing to do terrible things for what they saw as the good of the US.
> it rapidly became an article of faith in the Berniesphere that Sanders himself was wrong about this and the West Wing fandom in fact represented everything that was corrupt and bad about the Democratic Party
I think this faith results from the enticing simplicity of the corruption theory as well as its congruence with our intuition about human affairs. Our brains evolved in an environment consisting of small tribes where a few people could have a significant impact. We therefore naturally want to identify the key actors and their motives that conflict with our goals when society doesn’t function as we desire.
Hence these conspiracy theories have an intrinsic advantage in the “marketplace of ideas.” In contrast, the failings of well-intentioned bureaucrats requires understanding the management structure and incentives of complex, non-intuitive institutions.
Similarly, we struggle to comprehend the diverse interests and sincere beliefs of our country’s legislative representatives and their ever-shifting alliances. It’s hard enough for us to understand how individual people can have radically different models of reality than ourselves, yet alone project that onto large groups of people.
So we fall back on simple narratives centered on a few corrupt villains.
I think “The West Wing” is for a certain generation of political types like what “Law & Order” was for lawyers of my generation.
Although its depiction of the practice of law was completely unrealistic, it was the first law show I can think of where the lawyers actually *practiced law.* Perry Mason and Matlock and so on were basically just detectives in the Holmes/Poirot model, with the trial simply a forum for the detective-novel denouement, and shows like LA Law were basically just soap operas. The “lawyer” portion of L&O at least resembled what lawyers understand themselves as doing—there was real focus on the individual elements of the crimes (issues like intent and causation, analyzed totally separately from “who fired the gun”), on how the evidence satisfies each of those elements, and on procedural stuff like motions practice, or the fact that so many of the cases end in pleas. Was it realistic? Of course not—but it was still light years from what was previously depicted. And whenever I talk to fellow lawyers, they’ll acknowledge that yeah, the vibes are nothing like L&O…but they all watched the show when they were young.
I suspect there’s something similar in “The West Wing” for politics. Prior depictions of the practice of politics, esp. on TV and movies, are basically “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” type stuff, or inevitably they introduce some CIA black ops BS or it all boils down to some torrid love affair. TWW actually went into some of the nuts and bolts of how policymaking—both substantive stuff like real policies that were being considered at the time and procedural stuff like the role of people like WH Chief of Staff or congressional leadership. So forget about whether it was a “good show about American politics”—it was recognizably “about American politics”, period, in a way that only a few shows before or since have been. So of course political people loved it.
(But I will say, I always found it cringe.)
I loved the West Wing and was the right age for it to have a deep impact on what I thought an American President should sound like. One of my favorite things about the show was that the speeches made me proud to be an American, an idea that parts of the Democratic Party has since firmly disavowed.
The Obama years felt like I was finally living the West Wing. Every major speech that Obama gave was something I’d either watch live or tape to watch with friends/family later. His ability to inspire is profoundly missing from politics today. Obama felt like the last Democrat patriot. He, like Bartlett, espoused the idea that Americans had a troubled past and fraught present, but that we were uniquely aspiring for something better and that our practical ethos would allow us to continually move toward a better union.
The early season Sam Seaborn character was also unbelievably inspiring to me. Rob Lowe at his absolute best playing the type of character that I’ve always hoped filled out the offices of every able politician.
I'm surprised that Matt didn't mention what I've seen as the overwhelming criticism of the show on-line for the past 15 years or so -- it fails to show Republicans stomping puppies to death while simultaneously cudgeling doe-eyed orphans in each and every episode.
"It’s typical for a television show to focus heavily on a small cast of characters. The very best television shows like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” tend to break free of this constraint and use the long runtime of television to tell sprawling narratives that wouldn’t fit in a movie."
I think that no TV show did better and was more revolutionary in having a large cast of characters than The Simpsons. The ability of animation to spit out tons of characters that were nonetheless high quality paved the way for South Park and others to do the same.
“It’s a somewhat unappreciated quirk of American history that all three of these presidential deaths shifted public policy in a pro-slavery direction. There is more contingency at work on this issue than most people realize.”
It’s a massively under-appreciated quirk of American history that much, possible most, political change comes from ad hoc reactions to crises. Slavery is the best example of this. It was not abolished through the slow and steady boring of hard boards by abolitionists. Lincoln was not an abolitionist when he took office. In his first inaugural, he offered to amend the constitution to protect slavery in the states where it existed. Slavery was abolished because planters lost their shit over the election of a President who opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories and the transportation of slaves like Dred Scott into free states. The masters refused to compromise, overplayed their hand and lost their human property and, in some cases, their lives.
Northern opinion was radicalized by the war, there weren’t even a significant number of abolitionists in Congress in 1861.
> Even a lot of the really bad characters in politics — Paul Ryan, for example — are extremely sincere.
In the case of Paul Ryan, was he actually a sincere guy? I remember Ezra Klein feeling pretty burned that he believed the sincerity of Paul Ryan. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/10/17929460/paul-ryan-speaker-retiring-debt-deficits-trump
"To be clear, I am not particularly concerned about deficits right now, just as I wasn’t in 2010. But I took Ryan seriously when he said he was... But now, as Ryan prepares to leave Congress, it is clear that his critics were correct and a credulous Washington press corps — including me — that took him at his word was wrong. In the trillions of long-term debt he racked up as speaker, in the anti-poverty proposals he promised but never passed, and in the many lies he told to sell unpopular policies, Ryan proved as much a practitioner of post-truth politics as Donald Trump."
Did anyone else who did not watch the West Wing but enjoyed this post get really confused when Matt brought up “Santos”? I kept thinking George Santos and didn’t know why Matt was so complementary to this description of an Outsider.
Yo Matt, there’s a new Congress that could barely choose a Speaker of the House and might default on the national debt. More importantly, there are a lot of extremely pedestrian takes on said Congress and I’d like to hear a smart one from you. Off news cycle posts can be fun, but please step up to the plate when when there are big events that beg for smart take slinging.
I think the biggest liberal critique of The West Wing is that it has no space for McConnellism (the GOP strategy for accruing power by obstructing Dems at every turn, saying no to any deal, and simply trying to run out the clock). By 2010-11 it was pretty obvious that this is how Republicans would behave towards Obama, yet he still kept trying to make deals with them. Hell, some D members of Congress still haven't gotten this message, hence we're heading for another debt ceiling showdown!
Watching the show now makes it seem hopelessly naive.
Contention: Arnie Vinick was the fever dream of establishment centrism and The West Wing’s most utterly ridiculous creation.
I've written about the West Wing in these comments before, not sure how it came up, but I'll once again say that nearly everyone over 30 I spoke with while working in politics/politics adjacent fields as cited the West Wing as inspiration or a favorite show.
In terms of their radicalness, Barlett at one point made some large changes to foreign policy, in a more interventionalist direction, and Santo's education plan was not particular incrementalistic.
That Millhiser piece seems a bit misguided. The Barlett administration having few accomplishments is just the text of the show. He asks: "Or to ensure that every child who does succeed in high school will be able to pay for college?" That was the point of their refundability plan, to help reduce the cost of college, and they do so by removing a tax loophole on CEO compensation. He also says Barlett is inattentive to economic justice but Josh's intro to his campaign is him telling his constituent that he voted against a Dairy Compact because of child poverty.
I agreed that "The Surpremes" is very overrated, I think people just want to like a late season episode, but thats mostly because the writing of the conservative justice, Justice Christopher Mulready, was kind of silly. They want him to seems super objectionable at first and then just kind of hand wave that to get at the idea of a smart liberal and smart conservative arguing about ideas being cool. The point was that Glenn Close's character was that she was the "Liberal Lion" that they could replace the chief justice with rather than just get some middle of the road liberal. The abortion thing was a liability not the point of the nomination. Fun performances but doesn't hold up on later watches.
"A conventional knock on the show is that it makes it seem as if substantive political battles can be won with nice speeches. I think Aaron Sorkin’s movie “The American President” really does that. But “The West Wing” doesn’t — Bartlet simply does not achieve many big changes to American public policy because giving nice speeches doesn’t win substantive political battles"
I think this is correct (and similar to the take I had previously posted here). The speeches people remember are mostly embarrassing conservatives or reacting to great tragedies like the car crash or the bombing. Santos gives the most impactful, plot-wise, speech of the show at the convention.
It should also be mentioned that the West Wing often comes out in support of passionate people on the fringes. Justice Mendoza is presented as much better than the banal but well credentialed choice they had before. The entire plot of "The Surpremes" is based on the idea that smart people arguing ideas is better than simple appointing a compromise justice. When Stackhouse is running in the primary against Barlett they show that his run from the left causes Barlett to take the politically risking stances on needle exchange. He is presented as smart and reasonable even though the cast in angry at him for making the election harder. I think Bernie people might actually enjoy the episodes during this part.
People often try this strange double move against the West Wing where is both a fantasy and also the administration was "actually" not effective but the text of the show is that the people in politics, particularly liberal politics, are smart and passionate but also personally flawed and that despite their virtues it is hard to make progress. Their victories are often compromises, they suffer defeats and they end up thinking about who can continue the fight after their time is up.
Matt!
I agree! What you write is extremely true.
(Note: in WW, all characters exclaim the name of the person they’re talking to on a regular basis)
If you’re a has-watched-the-whole-series-6-or-7-times person like me, let me endorse the show (don’t worry - Mandy doesn’t last beyond season 1...you can fight through it) - the future star/cameo watching alone is worth it. I’d also recommend the West Wing Weekly companion podcast. Cohosted by Josh Malina.
My complaints about WW are many but I’ll name these:
1) Bartlett was too often like K9 on Doctor Who (Tom Baker years). In Doctor Who they’d create some totally inescapable trap for the characters...then at the last moment K9 would show up and use a previously un-discussed weapon (a laser cutter or smoke bomb or stun ray) and save the day. On WW they’d create some political Gordian Knot and in the last sequence POTUS would have some all-knowing/all-seeing karate move that he never talked about before...or he’d simply change his mind and decide the knot didn’t need to be untied. What? You weren’t ever going to sell the Aegis cruisers to the Taiwanese?? Wow! Good idea!! That would have been a great thing to tell your *#%ing staff about, Jed! Problem solved!
2) John Goodman’s horrendous Southern accent. It was only 3-4 episodes but it was bad enough to stun a team of oxen in their tracks.
3) John Spencer’s acting - may he rest in peace. Sorry, but search your feelings - you know it’s true. It sounds like he was a great guy...but the Leo role always felt totally miscast to me. Spencer was just never convincing as the ‘ultimate Washington power broker’
PS - I am typing this while simultaneously briskly walking down a crowded hallway, typing comments on 3 other Substack articles.
Am I the only one who thinks of Howard Dean whenever the West Wing gets mentioned?
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.