The West Wing originally aired from 1999 to 2006. It was the best and brightest example of liberal mollification media since M*A*S*H went off the air in 1983. Smart writing and believable Executive Branch scenarios kept the show on for seven seasons.
I recently binged the whole series and was shocked to fine it more than mildly upsetting. The first time around we got the politics week to week or VCR'd over a month or so. But binging back-to-back-back puts a viewer right smack in the midst of the incredible dysfunction that is the two-party system.
Evil bastards on both sides of the aisle cheat, weasel and steal with zero regard for their constituents. I mean, of course, in the show not actual events in Washington. The good guy president Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) is only the good guy if you're a liberal. John Goodman does a great conservative president for several episodes in season four. Take your pick.
What is unsettling is watching the fictional partisan dog-fighting of the show in this time of trump. Yet, it is also eerily calming to realize back twenty years ago, the inane political fractures in our government were already in place. About the only difference between fiction then and reality now is there are far fewer politicians who are truly moderate today.
Holding the political middle is difficult when there is no one there to represent moderation or compromise.
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