West Wing echoes

“The West Wing” is an amazing TV series. On one hand it serves as a political manual, still valid many years after, of how the political system works in the US. Elections, Congress, the White House and so on …. they are all included.

Much of the series focuses on the technicalities and as such it does not wander into behind the scenes backstabbing intrigue and corruption (a la House of Cards) in order not to distract from that. It definitely earns a sort of idealistic view by necessity although soapy idealism aside, there is one aspect that echoes in reality.

In the series, much ado is made about statesmanship and how much of statesmanship involves compromise. It’s the basic deal — to gain something, you must trade something, you get more from a position of power and less so otherwise. However, strong-arming is counterproductive in the long run as it removes opposition voices and that is bad because opposition means debate and debate is the heart and soul of a plural system.

Of course, the US is more of a duopoly but the undue focus on compromise is the main point I want to make here. Compromise has been the center line of the beaten path of the Democratic party, the party currently edged out out both the White House and the political scene in general.

This focus on compromise has seen the middleground shift visibly to the right more and more over the course of the years, a path driven by Democrats sacrificing some of their policies while the Republicans play “constitutional hardball”, a game invented long ago (sometime during Dick Cheney’s tenure as Oval Office gatekeeper) and perfected to an art by Mitch McConnell.

The game is simple, side A uses compromise and debate to hopefully advance half of their policies while the side B uses every technicality in the book and then some to block everything the opposition has. Every seat (Congress, state courts, federal court and Supreme Court) matters and is worked on. Hypocrisy is part of the game, where side B does things today that were unconscionable when done by side A and the phrase of the day is “you mad, bro?”. Every trick in the book is on the table and used by side B, while side A still thinks that everyone is ultimately on the same side and as such we should play fair and nice because we sit at the same table.

Well, side B now fills all the tables — but not just those we hear about every day (the House, Senate, White House). They fill the vast majority of seats in state/federal and supreme courts as well.

Of course, the MAGA steamroll didn’t come out of a vacuum, it came from the same grassroots cloth of people who felt their gravest concerns were not being listened to.

But the way this grassroots movement developed is the main difference between sides A and B.

While the B side used the MAGA movement to great effect (even though Mitch McConnell is far from a Trump supporter himself — he’s merely a brilliant strategist and power player who definitely loves the sport) and developed from cries on the dark parts of the internet into a movement that upended a party, side A has gutted its own grassroots movement to the point where its most prominent members became too old to keep running and its youngest were left exposed and without support.

Side B did not fear (at least, it did not let fears cripple it) that its MAGA voices would turn away voters, horrified about the absolute vile crap that most of its public speakers were throwing.

Side A was so horrified that its Squad with their Green New Deal, pro-union and pro-environment lobby would turn away voters that they muzzled their best assets …. the only assets that could mount a movement to oppose MAGA.

And the balance shifted to the right yet again.