The West Wing was wonderful. But you’re still not Josh Lyman
For years now, young political workers in the UK have had a romanticised and wrongheaded approach to how to do politics. I blame The West Wing.
let me be candid: there is no greater fan of this show than me. I have re-watched it many times and I greedily download the West Wing Weekly podcast the moment it’s available. But for me this piece of sublime fiction is just that. It’s an idealised version of the way politics might be, not a vision of a lost time we could get back if we just tried hard enough. And certainly not a blueprint for how politics could or should be practised nearly twenty years and several thousand miles away.
“Let Jeremy be Jeremy” is how the relaunch strategy from the Labour Leader’s office was briefed and the latest time the British left has tried and failed to use “let Bartlet be Bartlet” as a template. But aping the Bartlett administration is hardly unique to Corbyn’s leadership. It also powered those advising Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. All to equally poor effect.
At the end of the day, even the most presidential of UK politician deals with a different set of challenges than the actual president. they work within a different media and political environment and a very different electoral system. While there were some Presidential meet and greets in the West Wing, It’s hard to picture Martin Sheen pressing the flesh in a shopping precinct in Widnes — close enough to be egged by a protester. Apart from anything else, it would be the Secret Service, not John Prescott, hitting back which changes the dynamic of such visits somewhat.
America is vast. the UK — is not. So American presidential politics necessarily happens on a much bigger and grander scale than that of the Prime Minister. And while there are retail politics that are vital to US Democracy they are not the focus of the West Wing and so not part of the ethos the show built up among its following about how to do politics.
So yes, I love the West Wing. I can quote huge chunks of it. But I am tired of every junior staffer in the furthest flung regional offices think they’re really Toby, Josh and CJ. But as this idea that we know and understand the “rules” of the “game” of politics has taken hold — and that the rulebook was written exclusively by Aaron Sorkin — we have actually become less and less grounded in the grinding reality that is needed to deal with the political challenges the left face in today’s Britain.
As a result of West Wing addiction, us UK politicos also know — or think we know — far too much intricate detail of how we think the political sensibilities, diplomatic nuances and standard conventions of the office of the President is run. But as we watch on in horror as Donald Trump sets fire to all we hold dear, we have to let go of what we think we know. Convention will not save us. How things should be done is not how things will be done.
The temptation to revert to the worship of our favourite fictional President is huge. But to deal with the reality of today’s White House, the British political class needs to stop aping a great TV show made 20 years ago and deal instead with the reality of the reality TV star turned President. Politeness is out of the window. Diplomacy may well follow.
The West Wing’s strength is its idealism. In making feel good about politicians it introduces a rare positive note into our usual cynical discourse. Keeping hold of that optimism and belief in the life-changing good of politics over the cynicism of populism will be vital. But it must be fuelled by reality. Not a universe of helpful plot devices and impossibly witty dialogue. The West Wing set us impossible standards and not living up to them has just as much chance of making us cynical as mainlining The Thick of It (or News at Ten) will.
The escapism of the West Wing has its place, and we learn great lessons from the mirror fiction holds up to us. But we are a divided country with a politics both of left and right that is failing to find answers to the huge challenges we face at home, in the USA and all over the world. But that does not mean British politicos should actively retreat from reality into a mode in which they feel more comfortable. Politics must now deal with the disturbing realities of day to day political life in a time of tumultuous change and a President as unscripted and un-Bartlet as we may ever see. To take up that challenge we may need the faith in politics The West Wing allows us, but it must be reality-based.
and now, as a reward for letting me vent about the show I still consider one of my favourites of all time, here’s Lin-Manual Miranda’s What’s Next Rap:
