How 'The West Wing' Misled A Generation Of Liberals

TMR examines the role of Bush-era staples, such as The Daily Show and The West Wing, in shaping a generation of politically active liberals. Emma Vigeland is joined by Luke Savage, staff writer at @Jacobin Magazine, to discuss his how these shows created beliefs in a commitment to systems, with a cultural rejection of the right, that simply is not a plausible way for politics to function.

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When it comes to the West Wing I mean I'm a broken record talking about this but um you know I wrote the essay on the West Wing in 2017 and at the time I remember thinking that the show better than anything else articulated and channeled a certain kind of you know liberal view of the world, that especially came out during the Obama era. I think I've actually kind of radicalized on that view a little bit I actually think the West Wing played an active role in shaping that view and you really see it in the memoirs of people that worked in the Obama White House where they're all citing this show. I mean there were you know there was a particular type of you know ivy league you know uh 20 year old or something who in 2007 went to go work for this junior senator from Illinois who was running this really exciting campaign and their only political education was the West Wing. So you know when they get to the White House they don't think oh I'm in the White House we're running the country now they think oh wow I'm on the set of my favorite show, you know and there's and there's so much in the West Wing that you still see manifest in how uh you know liberals view the world. This idea that you can fix everything with a speech that uh bipartisanship is not a means to an end that it's an end in itself.