The West Wing, The Decadent Society and Donald Trump
Lockdown continues… Still fine… Not too much to report…
Review of the Week
So I thought I’d take a bit of a different tack this week - I’ve been reading The Murder of Professor Schlick by David Edmunds, which is a good book but I couldn’t come up with anything particularly exciting to write here.
So instead I’m going to review The West Wing Seasons 1 & 2, which is available for free streaming on All 4. Instead of a simple review of ‘is this good’ (yes) I’ll instead be looking at the type of politics that it promotes and the perception that ‘this is how politics should be done’.
Note that although I won’t go into too much depth about individual plot lines, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO SEASONS BELOW. In turn, I haven’t seen Seasons 3-7 so please don’t spoil them for me.
Okay, so this review has been inspired by comments along the lines of ‘[The West Wing] is how politics should be done’, which I’ve heard from both friends and random people on Hinge. Now I realise the past four years of American politics (and at times British politics) were pretty bad politics, but my takeaway from watching The West Wing was that they frankly didn’t achieve that much! Can it be a ‘good’ politics if the ills of society are barely tackled?
At the end of Season 2, during a rant aimed at God, President Bartlet lists the key achievements of the first two-and-a-bit years of his career as:
- Creating 3.8 million new jobs,
- Bailing out Mexico,
- Increasing foreign trade,
- 30 million new acres of land for conservation,
- Adding a new Supreme Court Justice,
- “We’re not fighting a war”,
and that’s it! To break these claims down one by one (with reference to America circa 1998-2000):
- More jobs - 3.8 million more employed when population rose over two years by 6.1 million is probably slightly above par but doesn’t seem that exceptional (note I am not an economist).
- Bailing out Mexico - in the show Donna complains to Josh that the US keeps bailing Mexico out so this is simply the status quo.
- Increasing foreign trade - generally seen as a good thing (as it probably should, again I’m not an economist), but when compared to numerous domestic ills in America at the time it’s probably only helping the most needy at the margins.
- Fair play, conserving an extra 1% of the US land mass is pretty cool. Potentially some lives down the line, but not saving many right now.
- Trump added Supreme Court Justices, is that 3x a bigger achievement?
- No wars is a good thing, but it should be noted Trump also didn’t start any.
Now contrast this to the domestic situation in America when the show first aired. In the late 90s, there were serious issues, including 30 million people living under the poverty line, manufacturing jobs being shipped overseas and being replaced by insecure work and 40 million without health insurance. When Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential Election to George Bush, this was a sign that people were looking for a change in direction. On this basis, I’d argue that Bartlet’s achievements are minor in comparison to the problems being faced.
So what actually goes on in The West Wing? Most of the action follows the incredibly bright top advisors spending most of their time putting out fires and managing issues that arise, rather than proactively making the world a better place. I picked two episodes at random, and their descriptions (from 4od) are reflective of most of the show:
Toby makes sure that a homeless Korean War veteran gets the funeral he deserves. CJ tries to get the staff to review hate crime legislation after a young gay man is murdered. Leo considers resigning.
(CJ failed in getting the legislation reviewed)
A bi-partisan breakfast meeting develops into a nightmare for CJ when Toby reveals too much to an opponent and makes an ill-advised decision.
So who’s fault is it if nothing gets done? It would be unfair to just blame the advisors, they want to make the world a better place even if they don’t succeed. Is it the Republican controlled Congress at fault? Or the Democrats not towing the party line? Both a little bit, but they usually have their own ideological reasons for blocking what the President wants, rather than simply being obstructionist.
More broadly, it could be said that big changes don’t happen due to the nature of the modern political system. The problems faced by government in The West Wing reminded me of a book The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat. This presented an America stagnating and incapable of solving its structural problems.
Douthat’s main hypothesis is that Western countries have ceased to be dynamic and creative, but instead settled into a state of decadence similar to the end of the Roman Empire. His definition of decadence is a state of:
economic stagnation, institutional decay, and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development.
The scope of the book is wider than just political/institutional decay, but he looks at how an optimistic, enthusiastic and charismatic President Obama failed to achieve deep, systematic change due to a broader sclerosis in the political system. He gives varied explanations for why this may have happened (large technocratic government, corportare actors & special interests, deepening polarization), but ultimately the root of each of these is the modern political system. Despite this, many modern-day liberals hold Obama’s Presidency up as good politics.
Which brings me on to Trump. Clearly Trump was a bad President. But I think what many on the ‘liberal left’ fail to understand is that many people are suffering and have been for some time. In both the US and the UK, millions are in poverty, in the eyes of many inequality has broken the link between hard work and fair renumeration and there’s very little opportunity to rise out of the situation that you are born into. Those suffering have seen very little action from the political class to solve these issues. Then Trump came along and acted as a radically different proposition promising to shake things. Although I believe that Tump is a grifter and not a saviour, those belittling supporters as being dumb are suffering from a lack of empathy, and that a moment’s reflection would reveal that many Trump supporters just want a leader who is looking out for them.
Now I’m just some guy with no background in policy, so am perhaps not the best placed to come up with solutions. That being said, My Two Cents are that we need a wholesale transplant of empathy into government, the media and the civil service for what it’s like for those struggling at the moment. Go out there, chat to ordinary people, understand their view of the world, and then go out there and improve things for them.
If we don’t shake things up away from the liberal dream of how politics should work given in The West Wing, there is a risk that the Presidency of Joe Biden will be a brief interlude before Trump 2024, or perhaps even worse.
Training Thoughts
I was originally going to do a 5 mile effort this weekend (for EA nationals road race), but have opted to do next weekend instead due to the weather. Generally feeling quite good, knees perhaps a bit sore, but the training plan is going well so far. Knocked up 95km this week, highest training week since May, hoping to push this up towards 100km once we can train twice per day (🙏).
Coding Projects
Not in the mood last weekend!
Top Twitter Follows
David Spiegelhalter is a statistics professor who posts largely on public understanding of risk and uncertainty. Regular go-to on the news during covid for apolitical takes. Seems genuilely interested in truth rather than using statistics to bias or distort.
Other Thoughts
- Started thinking about my entry for the next New Philosopher essay competition on Perspective. Currently toying with the difference of perspective between those in ‘the elite’ (government, civil service, academia & journalism) and ordinary citizens. First task is to find a better phrase than ‘the elite’…
- Although I said in my review in the top to please not spoil The West Wing for me, if the quality falls off a cliff like Heroes did, then a warning would be appreciated :)