Aaron Sorkin Isn't Gonna Let You Play 'West Wing' Fantasy Democratic Nominee Without Him
'Politics, boy I don't know!'
When President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was no longer seeking re-election, Vice President Kamala Harris was the most obvious choice to replace him as the Democratic nominee. During the lead-up to Biden’s momentous decision, pundits had proposed alternatives to Harris — some were reasonable but most were absurd.
Writer Aaron Sorkin, who at least isn’t James Carville, had a poorly timed guest essay in the New York Times on Sunday called “How I Would Script This Moment for Biden and the Democrats.” I lack Sorkin’s Emmys but I’m still aware that this is real life not a TV show or even a blockbuster movie. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige might suggest making Captain America the Democratic nominee or even the Scarlet Witch, who would literally shred Donald Trump in a debate. That’s at least interesting.
Instead, Sorkin went with Mitt Romney, the guy who ran for president twice and lost both times.
At their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney.
Nominating Mr. Romney would be putting our money where our mouth is: a clear and powerful demonstration that this election isn’t about what our elections are usually about it, but about stopping a deranged man from taking power.
This is where people like Sorkin lose the plot. The problem with a second Trump presidency isn’t just that he’s deranged. This isn’t an Outer Limits episode where the Trump-like president ushers in a nuclear armageddon. Trump’s true threat is that he’ll deliver on his promise to “make America great again” in the antebellum sense. He will impose a regressive sociopolitical hierarchy with white Christian men permanently at the top.
Republican policies are the problem, and Romney, a Republican, supports most of them. (He voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett!) Sorkin realizes this. He just doesn’t seem to care: “Does Mr. Romney support abortion rights?” he writes. “No. Does he want to aggressively raise the minimum wage, bolster public education, strengthen unions, expand transgender rights and enact progressive tax reform? Probably not.”
“Expand transgender rights” sounds like Democrats are offering line-skipping privileges at Disneyland. Republicans actively seek to banish trans people from public life and deny them necessary medical care. Many of Sorkin’s fellow Americans are terrified because their very existence is on the ballot. Of course, it’s easy for Sorkin to suggest that marginalized groups take the L on behalf of his high school Model Congress version of “democracy.” He once had a gay Republican House member say, “I agree with 95 percent of the Republican platform. I believe in local government. I believe in individual rights rather than group rights. I believe that free markets lead to free people, and the country needs a strong national defense. My life doesn’t have to be about being a homosexual.” But what good are individual rights in a free market if Republicans won’t let you live freely as an individual?
Why would Democrats do this?
Sorkin argues that Democrats should rally behind Romney because “there isn’t a Democrat who is polling significantly better than Mr. Biden.”
It’s disappointing if not surprising that Sorkin doesn’t seem to understand how political campaigns work. Biden spent millions running ads in swing states and was still losing to Trump. Meanwhile, Harris was never an official candidate until Sunday, when she shattered fundraising records. She wasn’t advocating for herself. She also has far more room to grow — fewer negatives than Biden and a larger pool of undecided voters she can persuade.
Surely Mr. Romney, who doesn’t have to be introduced to voters, would peel off enough Republican votes to win, probably by a lot.
Romney wouldn’t siphon that many Republican votes from Trump because the Republican party is in word and deed a Trump personality cult. Trump, already under indictment in four separate jurisdictions, wiped the floor with his Republican primary rivals this year. Nikki Haley mustered up just 24 percent of the vote against him, but according to election analyst Geoffrey Skelley, only “about half of her voters identified as Republicans, while the rest identified as independents or even Democrats, based on exit poll data.”
Barack Obama soundly defeated Romney in 2012 and he didn’t have to rely on Republican votes. Romney even won independents and white women. We don’t have to abandon our principles and cater to the Right just because Republicans willingly nominated a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, who twice lost the popular vote and only won the anti-democratic Electoral College because the left-of-center coalition was (stupidly) fractured.
It astounds me whenever people insist the only way Democrats can defeat Trump is with a “common-sense,” affirmatively pro-business, pro-war candidate who doesn’t fool around with identity politics — in other words, an idealized Republican from an Aaron Sorkin series. In The Newsroom, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is asked why he still considers himself a Republican:
“I call myself a Republican 'cause I am one. I believe in market solutions, and I believe in common sense realities and the necessity to defend ourselves against a dangerous world and that’s about it. Problem is now I have to be homophobic. I have to count the number of times people go to church. I have to deny facts and think scientific research is a long con. I have to think poor people are getting a sweet ride. And I have to have such a stunning inferiority complex that I fear education and intellect in the 21st century. But most of all, the biggest new requirement, really the only requirement, is that I have to hate Democrats. And I have to hate Chris Christie for not spitting on the President when he got off Air Force One. The two-party system is crucial to the whole operation. There is honor in being the loyal opposition. And I’m a Republican for the same reasons you are.”
Of course, Will is clearly a moderate Democrat, possibly even a liberal considering he doesn’t boast about his gun collection. I’m reminded of what Thomas L. Friedman wrote in 1999 about Bill Clinton: “He took all [the GOP’s] good stuff — welfare reform, balanced budget, defense spending — and left them with Phyllis Schlafly.” Republicans who value that so-called “good stuff” over cultural resentment and faux populism are already Democrats. Jesse Watters’ Fox News show isn’t a version of Firing Line.
The West Wing, even after Sorkin left the series, consistently depicted Republicans who were essentially moderate Democrats. The Republican nominee for president during the show’s final season was Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), a senator from California who had a pro-choice voting record and wouldn’t commit to appointing judges who might overturn Roe v. Wade. He was a stealth atheist, uncomfortable with public proclamations of religious faith. He also supported immigration reform. Instead of raging against “coastal elites,” Vinick celebrated California as “the one state that has everything: big cities, small towns, mountains, deserts, farms, factories, fishermen, surfers, all races, all religions, gay, straight, everything this country has. There's more ‘real America’ in California than anywhere else.”
That’s not Mitt Romney.
Democrats shouldn’t preemptively surrender
During West Wing’s second season, it was revealed that President Jed Bartlet had multiple sclerosis, which he knowingly hid from voters and most of his senior staff when he was elected. He nonetheless chose to run for re-election, confident that he would win because he existed in a world less grounded in reality than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (no, seriously). Sorkin admits that he took a lot of dramatic short cuts in the Bartlet re-election storyline: “Because I needed the West Wing audience to find President Bartlet’s intransigence heroic, I didn’t really dramatize any downward pull that his illness was having on his re-election chances,” he writes. “And much more important, I didn’t dramatize any danger posed by Bartlet’s opponent winning.”
I won’t make light of Sorkin’s past issues with substance abuse. I’ll just gently remind you that I was actually sober when West Wing’s third season aired and can confirm that Bartlet’s Republican opponent, Gov. Robert Ritchie (James Brolin) from Florida, did in fact pose a serious danger to the nation. Thanos’s dad played him as an obvious George W. Bush stand-in, and Bartlet would trounce him by 10 million votes. That fictional Democratic victory felt especially hollow after the illegal Iraq war and the right-wing justices Bush would put on the Supreme Court.
In the third season finale, Bartlet tells Ritchie, “You’ve turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn’t enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don’t like you, that’s the only reason why.”
That’s Sorkin’s primary criticism of Bush — he’s not a big reader and probably didn’t drop obscure Latin phrases like Bartlet. However, Bush was actually quite effective at rolling back liberal gains. As the “decider” himself might say, he was stupid like a fox.
Ritchie hits back at Bartlet: “You're what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You're an academic elitist and a snob. You're, uh, Hollywood, you're weak, you're liberal, and you can't be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don't like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.”
Sorkin perfectly encapsulated the MAGA movement in 2002 but Romney surrendered to it in 2012 when he accepted Trump’s endorsement. Ritchie was a smug anti-intellectual who took pride in his ignorance, just like Donald Trump and most of today’s GOP. Mitt Romney is a smart, thoughtful white man, and that’s who Sorkin thinks should rule the world regardless of triflingly matters like ideology and actual policy positions.
(Not long after Biden dropped out of the race, Sorkin emailed former West Wing star Josh Malina: “I take it all back. Harris for America!” Sorry, Mitt.)
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This also goes to how so many "centrist" types think that "bipartisanship" should include reaching out to Republicans--it is a complete ignorance of what the GOP actually is. They idealize this idea of "sensible" Republicans that really just describes moderate and conservative Democrats. Imagine how long a Sorkin-esque "Republican" would last in today's GOP.
We don't have to imagine too hard--look at what Romney had to become. He was a genuinely moderate Republican in Massachusetts (true, you had to be, if you were going to be elected statewide there) and had to run completely away from that to compete for the GOP presidential nomination. Look at what happened to John McCain--not even a moderate, he was always a very conservative Senator, but the moment he strayed from the party line (saying he believed Obama was a Christian, defending John Kerry's Vietnam service during Swift Boat time, ultimately opposing Trump to some degree) he was blasted by his party, eventually becoming known as a "RINO" because Trump disliked him.
Democrats would be wise to ignore any suggestions to appeal to Republicans, and focus their own appeal on their own party's broad spectrum. Appealing to Democrats of the right, left and center will do more to win over the general public than fruitless attempts to pretend the GOP hasn't gone fully crazy.
Sorkin's whole pitch here is a masterclass in Murc's Law. Note that it's always Democrats that have to show 'unity,' and to do such by picking a Republican (or taking a Republican position). And this is baked into so much political commentary; only Democrats have agency.
Republicans do something shitty - "Why didn't Democrats stop it?!"
Democrats win a race - "They should make nice with the Republicans and be gracious." (and yet also they do not get a mandate because of the people Democrats represent)
Democrats try to do legislation - "Democrats need to make it bipartisan."
There's never serious calls or browbeating on Republicans to compromise or do the right thing. And IF the Republicans were asked to include a Democrat it'd be someone in the vein of Maserati Manchin, who is no longer a Democrat anyway!