Sorkin’s Fantasy
What if 2024 was a "West Wing" episode?
Aaron Sorkin’s political drama “The West Wing” was popular with Washington insiders precisely because of its un-reality, portraying American politics as we fantasize it ought to be, a world where smarts and good intentions matter more than appealing to voters, raising money, or advancing an ideological agenda. The show debuted a quarter century ago now and its creator takes to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to tell us “How I Would Script This Moment for Biden and the Democrats.”
The problem in the real world is that there isn’t a Democrat who is polling significantly better than Mr. Biden. And quitting, as heroic as it may be in this case, doesn’t really put a lump in our throats.
But there’s something the Democrats can do that would not just put a lump in people’s throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrifice. So here’s my pitch to the writers’ room: The Democratic Party should pick a Republican.
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. Surely Mr. Romney, who doesn’t have to be introduced to voters, would peel off enough Republican votes to win, probably by a lot. The double haters would be turned into single haters and the Nikki Haley voters would have somewhere to go, Ms. Haley having disqualified herself when she endorsed the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government.
There’s more to it but . . . you get the drift.
Sorkin is being dragged on social media this morning for the sheer silliness of the idea. Of course Democrats aren’t going to give their nomination to Romney, a decent man but one whose policy views are still largely anathema to them.
But here’s the thing: his fantasy scenario is based on taking the Biden campaign them at face value. If, in fact, the fate of American democracy were at stake in this election, it would be worth sacrificing every other short-term political goal to achieve that. But, as in 2020, Democrats think the sort of people who voted for Romney in 2012 should be willing to live with the consequences of electing a Democratic President to achieve that goal rather than Democrats having to live with the consequences of even a non-MAGA Republican President.
Now, that’s fair enough. After all, it’s Republicans who have nominated Trump. Three times in a row! Still, that Democrats aren’t willing to do what they’re asking of NeverTrump Republicans demonstrates how big the ask is. (And I write that as one who has in fact done the thing twice and is prepared to do so a third time.)
On its face, Sorkin’s fantasy makes sense as a bold gambit to save democracy. Many people who viscerally dislike Trump but can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat would jump at the chance to vote for Romney.
But, of course, their numbers would almost certainly be offset by Black, LGBTQ, Progressive, and other Democratic constituencies outraged that their party not only ousted the sitting President for whom they voted in 2020 and in the 2024 primaries but bypassed the sitting Vice President for whom they similarly voted—and every other Democrat in the country!—for they guy they voted against in 2012.
This one needs a rewrite.
Though it happened after Sorkin left the show, the final season featured the perennial pundit fantasy of an open convention in the 21st century.
One writer who was still involved in the show at that point was Lawrence O’Donnell, though I have my doubts whether that plot point was his idea. He’s been among the pundits who has come out most forcefully against replacing Biden, and he’s repeatedly explained why an open convention is a ridiculous and unworkable idea in the modern age.
Or maybe O’Donnell did come up with that subplot, but recognizes the difference between fiction and reality.
Oh, FFS.
Can we all agree that this is the point when this situation jumped the shark?
I agree 2024 should be a West Wing episode.
However, instead of constantly claiming Democrats should be the only ones to do anything, it’s time for Republicans to give their nomination to AOC.
Instead, we can be sure we’ll see more Rapepublican attacks [both physical and verbal] on Democrats for existing – and claiming that any responses in kind from Democrats on Republicans are “divisive.”
I won’t wait up for Republicans to admit Trump’s mental condition has been worse than Biden’s for years.. with a free pass from both the conservative mainstream media and all Republican political officials. Forgetting names? Trump’s been doing that since accepting the nomination in 2016. Unable to walk forward? Check and check. Pathological liar? Narcissism? Anger towards anyone who does not love him unconditionally? Obsession with revenge and retribution? All done for years now.
The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
– Tom Clancy, who knew what he was talking about.
If I had my wish, we’d drop all the movie-tv-show analogies and just deal with life as it’s lived. You know, as if we were a grown-up nation or something.
Back in early 1991 when Bush the elder looked more invincible that Superman’s secret love child with Jesús, there was a satirical op ed in TIME, proposing the Democratic party nominate George Herbert Walker Bush for president, and anyone other than Dan Quayle for VP.
That was far more realistic advice than Sorkin’s
@Not the IT Dept.:
Bit of a tangent, but there’s no evidence Tom Clancy ever said that. Like a lot of famous quotes, it’s been misattributed to various people, and the earliest known version of the quote, by Mark Twain, is somewhat different from how it’s commonly rendered today:
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
From there it was a game of telephone, the quote being changed and evolving each time it was referenced. It seems it was Leo Rosten who first (mis)quoted Twain as having said fiction “has to make sense.” And from there it got misattributed to other authors, most commonly Tom Clancy.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/15/truth-stranger/
@Jen:
Yes.
@Kylopod:
Oh, don’t get me started on Clancy. A crap writer who didn’t even write his own books.
Perhaps Sorkin’s op-ed is very dry satire, pointing out how incredibly stupid an open convention would be. Or an exercise in seeing what incredibly stupid things The NY Times is willing to publish.
Normally, I think people who claim to support X actually do support X — it’s just simpler, and if there is no other information, it’s likely true. But this is so stupid that I’m willing to immediately entertain other possibilities.
@Jen: Unless we’ve reached the point where the shark has replied “Fwk no, I ain’t doin’ that.”
ETA: @Gustopher: Both amazingly available and reasonable hypotheses.
Argument from facts not in evidence.
That you will have done the thing three times sorta belies the idea that the ask is that big, doesn’t it? I don’t think you see yourself as all that heroic, do you?
The key difference is that were the Democrats to nominate Romney they would be asking their constituents to deny the values they profess in order to save democracy from Trump and his enablers. OTOH, all that is being asked of NeverTrumpers and other Republican voters of conscience is to honor the values they profess by denying their votes to those who seek power in their name to do very non-conservative things in office.
To see the Ask as equivalently Big for disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans is to see the election only in tribal terms. That ain’t what’s happening here.
@Scott F.: By the time the party nominated Trump the first time, I was already pretty estranged from it. I was never a huge social conservative, so the downside risk of Hillary was much lower for me.
So if you’re sending out for pizza with four friends, two of you want pepperoni, one wants anchovies, and two want tire rims, anthrax, and anchovies, you consider it an equal ask for the anchovy guy to vote for pepperoni as for two pepperoni guys to vote for anchovy rather than be stuck with tire rims and anthrax? Yeah, anchovy is the second best option, but it hardly seems fair.
Well, this is not an episode of West Wing… maybe celebrity death match?
The Guardian just reported that Pres Biden has withdrawn from the presidential election. He will apparently remain until the end of his term.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/21/joe-biden-withdraw-running-president?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
@gVOR10: I wasn’t willing to vote for that greenmailing bottom feeder in 2012 and am still not willing to. Facts not in evidence. Indeed!
@Flat Earth Luddite: Might work as a skit on Mad TV.
We were all laughing about this in the morning, but now we are halfway there!
We now have major paper’s publishing op-eds where Democrats are encouraged to nominate reasonable Republicans to stop a “deranged man from taking power” while remaining eerily silent on what Republicans (who, by the way, have nominated and feverishly support that deranged man) can do.
Odd…
I would totally vote for Mitt Romney period. This all makes complete sense. You get the best of both worlds and both parties for unity. You also get senior leadership on the world’s stage, That is not deranged or has dementia.
@Ronnie Sanchez: I could see Harris picking Romney as VP. What if we don’t have a better Senate majority, though? When it comes down to the VP’s vote, it could screw us.
@Ronnie Sanchez: “You also get senior leadership on the world’s stage, That is not deranged or has dementia–yet.
FTFY.
@Jax:
No, I really could not. The idea that such a scenario is remotely plausible–putting aside whether it’s a good idea or not–is laughable. For one thing, it would be a giant FU to all the issues her party claims to care about, from abortion to climate change to taxation and more. It would also negate the attempt to bring youthfulness back to the campaign since Biden’s withdrawal. And if your response is, “It would signal that the most important issue in this election is democracy,” that argument only works if you know for a fact that selecting Romney would put her in a better position for winning than choosing a conventional Democrat. You don’t know that; nobody does.
I fully expect Dems to be very risk-averse at this point. That’s why it’s so likely they’re going to go with a white male and pass over, say, Gretchen Whitmer.
@Kylopod: I live in red country, where I’m a tiny blue dot, and there’s no fucking way we’re going to get any crossovers, or even the base, with another woman. I’m sorry, it is what it is.
Mitt Romney, though, he brings all the Mormon’s and those who are scared of a black woman.
We can’t trust Mitt Romney, though, I know that. He’ll be like Joe Manchin. Right when we start to trust him, he won’t be the 51st vote in the Senate.