Nobody Asked, We Didn't Listen - The Worst Wing Podcast!

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R. Guyovich: Dec 25, 1991

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/StevePasquale/status/1169369602847121410

poisoning laura benanti's brain with the west wing should be a capital crime

# ? Sep 5, 2019 08:05

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:06

Zenithe: Feb 25, 2013; _{Ask not to whom the Anidavatar belongs; it belongs to thee.}

Mantis42 posted:

Reminder: the people who think Bartlett is the ideal president also uncritically repeat the meme that Bernie has never accomplished anything.

I'm halfway through season 2 (of the podcast, not watching the show) and I don't think there has been a single tangible thing they have done yet that wasn't openly reactionary.

I'm probably wrong, I listen to this like 9 eps at a time when driving home.

# ? Sep 8, 2019 10:14

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

lol remember the time when toby is in a bar and meets the father of a girl that's gonna go to college and the father tells him he's not looking for a free ride, he ain't no freeloader, just for things to be a bit easier, you know
so they make college costs tax deductible or something
I mean you're writing this stuff and you don't think to put in a working class guy who can't send his kid to college but some middle class-upper middle class guy who just wants things to be a little bit cheaper
it's pure propaganda for centrism, and I've got no beef with the propaganda part, propaganda is how you communicate with the masses, it's what they're shilling for that's crap

# ? Sep 8, 2019 10:25

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

speakina Toby hahaa

https://twitter.com/lukewsavage/status/1170534812979015680

# ? Sep 8, 2019 16:05

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

is there any West Wing alum who's a Bernie bro?

# ? Sep 8, 2019 19:01

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

gradenko_2000 posted:

is there any West Wing alum who's a Bernie bro?

not full on from what I've seen

oddly enough Richard Schiff voiced some support in the 2016 race

as we live and breathe the show's universe it's sometimes easy to forget that it was filmed 20 years ago, so even the presumptively "most likely to be Sanders Sibs by virtue of their age" actors like Dule Hill (44) and Elisabeth Moss (37) are both brainpoisoned by wealth and not actually "young" at all.

Moss is famously a Scientologist who actively deflects criticism of the fundamental contradictions between her "feminism" and her weird cult. Both had established careers that allowed them to dodge the material deprivation visited on even people of their age by the dot-com crash and the Great Recession.

# ? Sep 8, 2019 19:44

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Dule Hill is 44?! Way to make me feel old

and yeah I wasn't holding out much hope given that they're all ultimately celebrities and actors, but thanks for checking

gradenko_2000 has issued a correction as of 19:54 on Sep 8, 2019

# ? Sep 8, 2019 19:51

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Dule Hill is 44?! Way to make me feel old

and yeah I wasn't holding out much hope given that they're all ultimately celebrities and actors, but thanks for checking

Not everyone can be Dany DeVito.

# ? Sep 8, 2019 22:38

The Cameo: Jan 20, 2005

surely James Cromwell appeared on an episode once...

... yep, he did, playing a president, in fact! I think that means it�s the episode where Bartlet attends a Presidential funeral with the guy who took over the Presidency for like forty-eight hours that John Goodman played and Cromwell is the other, actually elected President attending the funeral. It�s in the fifth season, aka the one with the �let�s have a liberal AND conservative Supreme Court justice, because golly gee they argue so good!� episode.

edit: also now having watched this episode for the first time in like a decade this episode is hilariously bad too. They really poo poo their pants in the fifth season, my god, there�s not even any real drama, it�s twenty-something episodes of using one oar on one side of the boat

The Cameo has issued a correction as of 02:36 on Sep 9, 2019

# ? Sep 9, 2019 01:12

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

it's been a while, friends! Work is beating my rear end, love to be ground to a paste in service of investors

Anyway It's time for some relationship building! and we're still kind of puzzled why it had to be done this way like, in every respect of this episode.

Solidarity forever happy strike month comrades

# ? Sep 14, 2019 01:45

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Vox: The West Wing is 20 years old. Too many Democrats still think it�s a great model for politics.

quote:

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1170491979224014848

Does Schiff�s message directly compare Biden to fictional president Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen)? Not quite (it also isn�t aware that �Bartlet� has but one T at the end). But it all but tiptoes up to that line and peeks over before deciding not to do so. The implication, if nothing else, is clear: If you want to send a real-life Jed Barlet to the White House, to elect as your commander in chief a sometimes grouchy guy with a heart of gold who hails from the Northeast, you�d better vote Joe Biden. Even their initials are the same.

As I argued in the debut episode of my new podcast Primetime, whose first season (which I recorded under a former name) is about the intersection of television and the presidency, Washington can�t escape The West Wing. The series resurfaces again and again, particularly as its stars continue to make cameos in Democratic politics. (Listen to the full episode to hear several more examples.) It feels like many Democrats have an incurable case of West Wing fever � a malady I expect will only grow more heated in the weeks to come, as the show�s 20th anniversary arrives later in the month.

That�s why seeing the Joe Biden message from Schiff made me wonder something: Did The West Wing break some portion of the Democratic Party?

When thinking of great fictional presidents, it�s easy to think of Jed Bartlet. In Sorkin�s conception of the character, he was steely but kind, gruff but fundamentally loving.

The West Wing turned the antics of the fictional Bartlet White House into the stuff of workplace-drama dreams. It had everything: whiplash-quick patter, engaging performances, and a genuinely groundbreaking directorial style that popularized the �walk and talk� (where two characters deliver reams of dialogue while confidently striding through a frenzied office environment, as the camera follows along). But at its heart, the show earned such adoring fans, many of whom were apparently intimately involved in Democratic politics, because it tapped into the Father Knows Best paternalism that defines a certain strain of American presidential longing.

Twenty years later, The West Wing still holds a special idealistic thrill for many viewers, especially those on the left. Google searches for the series spiked after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and the show�s presence on Netflix allowed for a similar viewership rush. In an era of presidential blather and bluster, the quiet certitude of the Bartlet administration fills a need for a more optimistic view of what our politics could be.

Yet at the same time, The West Wing has come under fire from one-time or would-be fans, who see in its vision of politics something that has come to hamstring the Democratic Party by forever tying it to stentorian speechifying and Clintonian third-way politics. The Bartlet administration, after all, represents a very �90s view of the left-wing coalition.

As former West Wing writer Eli Attie points out in Primetime�s episode on the series, The West Wing was initially conceived of as a deliberate response to the scandal-plagued Clinton White House � one that came from the left:

quote:
Part of the initial energy of The West Wing when it first went on the air was, imagine if you had a sort of a Clinton administration without the scandals, without the compromises, without the sort of calculus that made it shift to the center when it was politically expedient or politically necessary. ... It stripped away the clutter of what it�s like to work in the White House and the fact that people spend a lot of their day answering emails and sitting in boring meetings and gets to the kind of essence of decision-making. the goal of The West Wing was to entertain people first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.

The West Wing has come to so thoroughly define the way that many in the center-left have come to think about Washington that it�s had a deleterious effect on their beliefs about how Washington should work. On the one hand, The West Wing holds up as ideal comfort food television. But on the other, its politics are profoundly limited.

Concerns about The West Wing�s non-diverse casting were present even when it initially aired. Before it debuted, the NAACP denounced its lack of black characters � something the show corrected with the addition of Charlie Young, played by Dul� Hill, in episode two. But Charlie was the president�s �body man,� which brought its own challenges. For as many times as The West Wing tried to engage with the icky implications of its foremost black character being a glorified servant, it had a bad habit of centering stories that could have been about Charlie on white characters instead.

For instance, when white nationalists seemingly attempted to assassinate Bartlet, The West Wing revealed their ire was driven by Charlie dating Bartlet�s white daughter, Zoey, and that Charlie was their real target. But almost all the arcs about the fallout from the assassination were distributed among the show�s white cast members, especially Bradley Whitford�s Josh Lyman. Charlie�s existence within the universe of The West Wing was rarely more than peripheral.

Meanwhile, more recent criticism of The West Wing�s limited perspective has been bolstered by a shift in thinking among left-leaning Americans who have soured on the Clinton era and the White House�s attempts to triangulate and box out conservative Republicans. Now, in an era of increasingly noisy and fractious conversations within the Democratic Party about how the party might best serve as a check on the Trump administration, The West Wing�s vision of a liberalism driven by soaring speeches and tear-jerking moments of camaraderie that extend across the aisle feels even more alien.

The irony here is that when The West Wing debuted, it was, as I mentioned above, a sort of corrective to Clintonian triangulation and the Democratic Party of the �90s. The show is full of moments in which Bartlet and his staffers, keyed up to do the right thing, don�t do what Clinton very much did. One episode even features a scene where Schiff�s character plaintively argues that the president should not say the era of big government is over, a direct rebuke of a line from an actual Clinton speech.

Yet the politics of the Democratic Party have moved leftward in many ways since The West Wing went off the air in 2006. If the show were to air in 2019, it would immediately be criticized for the whiteness of its cast, to say nothing of Sorkin�s irritating habit of writing strong and capable women who are only strong and capable so long as there�s no man around to render them tongue-tied. Earlier this year, when he called for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other new members of Congress to �stop acting like young people,� it felt exactly like something an older white guy on a Sorkin TV show would say to a young woman upstart, to be met with her flustered acquiescence.

Similarly, LGBTQ issues are an important plank of the modern Democratic platform that had little to no presence within the world of The West Wing. But most crucially, the show�s neoliberal economics, where capitalism always wins, are increasingly out of touch with modern Democrats� policy dreams.

The most significant shift in Democratic politics since The West Wing left the air is tactical. Younger left-leaning voters increasingly don�t believe the Republican Party, as currently constituted, is capable of compromise � and not without reason. There is a growing desire among some Democratic voters to see their party play hardball, to impeach Trump, to maybe even pack the Supreme Court in an effort counterbalance what many of these voters see as the theft of a seat that might otherwise have belonged to Merrick Garland.

Such a shift in tactics would be anathema to Jed Bartlet�s staffers, who never met a problem they couldn�t solve with a beautiful, soaring bit of rhetoric that convinced everybody their center-left proposals were the correct way forward. But, as many on the party�s leftmost flank would now argue, the failure of Barack Obama�s administration to win over Republican legislators, despite having one of the most gifted orators in generations behind the bully pulpit, would seem to unseat The West Wing�s ideals, to firmly prove you can�t solve all society�s ills with the right speech and a little politesse.

And yet that argument doesn�t hold water for everybody in the Democratic coalition. The West Wing still holds an intense fascination for many Democratic voters and at least some Democratic politicians. As political science professor Paul Musgraves of the University of Massachusetts Amherst told me during the Primetime episode:

quote:
All of these Obama-era junior officials were talking about how they would go to work in the Obama White House and it would be just like The West Wing. ... That this was the way that they had seen reality portrayed and that they wanted reality to be. ... And I think that one of the reasons why 2016 felt so personally disappointing for a lot of folks who identified with those politics was that the antithesis of The West Wing actually won the election � I mean literally, right? The West Wing getting defeated by The Apprentice.

(Brief pause for irony here, as the TV show that overtook The West Wing as the top show in its Wednesday-night time slot was a different reality show: The Bachelor.)

In supporting Joe Biden, Schiff is deliberately playing to those for whom The West Wing represents an ideal for how Washington should operate. And given Biden�s consistent lead in polling and his campaign�s continued positioning of him as the sane adult in the room, the Bartlet-esque politician is still the sort of archetype that many Democratic voters respond to. From this perspective, even Biden�s many gaffes are reminiscent of Jed Bartlet�s White House, where staffers seemed to misspeak in every other episode in ways that were misinterpreted to great comedic effect, even though they always meant well.

Biden�s lead in the polls might be slipping, but he�s still ahead. And he drives lefty Democratic voters nuts � both with his insistence that he can find a way to make Republicans bipartisan again and with his unspoken promise to replace the wild swings of the Trump White House with the type of calmer, more thoughtful approach that would make America 2015 again.

That dream seems at odds with reality, but it would be more than at home on The West Wing. Like it or not, the presidents who hold sway over the Democratic Party still include an entirely fictional one.

nothing here that hasn't been said on your podcast before, but I found it... interesting that a website as horrendously liberal as Vox was willing to make this critique, even if they also pull their punches (i.e. Joe Biden's record on civil rights, issues of race, crime, and even foreign policy are loving atrocious)

# ? Sep 16, 2019 15:47

WampaLord: Jan 14, 2010

gradenko_2000 posted:

nothing here that hasn't been said on your podcast before, but I found it... interesting that a website as horrendously liberal as Vox was willing to make this critique, even if they also pull their punches (i.e. Joe Biden's record on civil rights, issues of race, crime, and even foreign policy are loving atrocious)

The tables are turning and even Vox can't deny that TWW is horribly dated at best, neoliberal propaganda at worst

Thanks for the article, great to see more awareness getting out there about how lovely this loving show is

# ? Sep 16, 2019 15:52

Acinonyx: Oct 21, 2005

So I was treasonous-ly listening to the West Wing Thing podcast and they go off about how the actual people working in the White House are very competent and a plot where Leo's assistant is an idiot is not believable. How could anyone think that in the YOL 2019? If anything we have learned that the people working in the Obama WH were also idiots, W's admin was full of idiots, Clinton, H.W., Reagan, and so on. Remember when Rahm Emanuel was touted as some sort of high level brain genius for example? Jebuz...

# ? Sep 17, 2019 19:37

Beelzebufo: Mar 5, 2015; Frog puns are toadally awesome

Subjects of the Pharaoh had less reverence for their godking than many Americans have for their leaders. The myth of the meritocracy is absurdly strong.

# ? Sep 17, 2019 21:01

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

Acinonyx posted:

So I was treasonous-ly listening to the West Wing Thing podcast and they go off about how the actual people working in the White House are very competent and a plot where Leo's assistant is an idiot is not believable. How could anyone think that in the YOL 2019? If anything we have learned that the people working in the Obama WH were also idiots, W's admin was full of idiots, Clinton, H.W., Reagan, and so on. Remember when Rahm Emanuel was touted as some sort of high level brain genius for example? Jebuz...

really?

this is actually a bit shocking because Other Dave seems like he's been consistently radicalizing through his exposure to the utter poo poo our country wallows in for the dollop. kinda surprised he doesn't come out the gate more cynically.

also total bullshit lmao it's grifters all the way down.

# ? Sep 19, 2019 15:49

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

good lord imagine thinking that in 2019 and somehow not believing that nepotism and favoritism are rampant in political offices

# ? Sep 19, 2019 16:36

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

i'm spurtin here!

So manly!

Please don't do push-ups at me mr governor man!

Chirurgeon it's budget season and I'm gettin slammed but I'll work something out, stay tuned.

# ? Sep 25, 2019 22:56

Acinonyx: Oct 21, 2005

Gunshow Poophole posted:

really?

this is actually a bit shocking because Other Dave seems like he's been consistently radicalizing through his exposure to the utter poo poo our country wallows in for the dollop. kinda surprised he doesn't come out the gate more cynically.

also total bullshit lmao it's grifters all the way down.

Many otherwise intelligent people suffer from extreme decorum poisoning. I mean, what percent of Congress people can articulate a coherent policy position about ANYTHING without notes or an aid whispering into their ear? 5%? The concept that we are ruled over by a bunch of loving dipshit failsons, real estate grifters and transparent con artists is too horrifying to be directly contemplated. It is easier to cling to the fiction that these people are actually competent no matter the evidence to the contrary.

# ? Oct 2, 2019 19:07

LGD: Sep 25, 2004

Acinonyx posted:

Many otherwise intelligent people suffer from extreme decorum poisoning. I mean, what percent of Congress people can articulate a coherent policy position about ANYTHING without notes or an aid whispering into their ear? 5%? The concept that we are ruled over by a bunch of loving dipshit failsons, real estate grifters and transparent con artists is too horrifying to be directly contemplated. It is easier to cling to the fiction that these people are actually competent no matter the evidence to the contrary.

well I think that's part of the purpose of that particular outlook - while the cowardice, cupidity, senility, general detachment from reality, etc. of elected officials may be undeniable, you can take comfort in the fact that they're all being served by dedicated, competent, and bright staffers from our best educational institutions (just offstage)

its a way to maintain a measure of faith in the system despite all visible evidence to the contrary

# ? Oct 2, 2019 19:16

Goon Danton: May 24, 2012; Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

Essentially just believing in the Good Illuminati

# ? Oct 9, 2019 18:33

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

hashtag death crew war crimes

This was a fun one to record, in hindsight because I was blitzed. like people expect to make it through a single god drat news cycle without some sort of intoxicant on board, sheesh.

# ? Oct 10, 2019 17:38

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I got that Phantasmagoria 2 reference!

# ? Oct 13, 2019 05:33

WampaLord: Jan 14, 2010

gradenko_2000 posted:

I got that Phantasmagoria 2 reference!

I absolutely knew with our audience that at least one of you would.

# ? Oct 13, 2019 13:52

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

I didn't catch it and I watched Spoony's entire LP of it. :negative:

# ? Oct 13, 2019 17:25

WampaLord: Jan 14, 2010

MonsieurChoc posted:

I didn't catch it and I watched Spoony's entire LP of it.

Oh it was just that the Myanmar reporter guy has big Curtis Craig Energy (along with his Big Shirt Energy)

# ? Oct 13, 2019 17:41

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

hey chirurgeon I am stuck with teh inlaws and I cannot do a meet tomorrow morning, I sent you a PM but not sure the app is actually pushing them out.

will check again on the peecee when I can

# ? Oct 13, 2019 20:26

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

I got it and replied. Thanks!

# ? Oct 14, 2019 01:02

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

a red day

Some poo poo about a submarine and also hey it's Hal Holbrook! after which we break in to discuss contemporary politics in a rare abdication of form.

strike wave hit my friends in the CTU, up the union, solidarity, let's make this poo poo happen

# ? Oct 17, 2019 23:55

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

how many of y'all read this god drat book when you were a kid?

Struggled to find some interstitial music this time because whoops we've done such a great job of exterminating indigenous people that they're almost unrepresented in a non-exploitative, non-patriarchal way in the entirety of popular culture!

Great job, whites! However I'll note that my wife forced me to watch Marlon Brando's non-acceptance of his Oscar where he had a native woman get up on stage and preach like fifty loving years ago which I did not know about so, that's cool I guess.

# ? Oct 25, 2019 23:32

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Toby: still the worst.

# ? Oct 26, 2019 04:18

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

so, in advance of our next ep I would exhort anyone who's still routinely listening to read This Article as a bit of a palate... Preparation?

Because it's really spectacular.

# ? Oct 27, 2019 20:39

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

in case you all haven't seen this in any of the other seven threads it gets posted in:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html

lol

nay... lmfao

GOT EM

# ? Oct 31, 2019 17:02

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

BORAT VOICE MAH WAHEEFE

Our first guest star was a smashing success procedurally, I hope you enjoy her contribution to our little world of critique.

This was great fun to record, I dunno, it feels weird to say it but we collectively hit it off very well which feels like an accomplishment.

# ? Nov 1, 2019 03:59

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Gunshow Poophole posted:

so, in advance of our next ep I would exhort anyone who's still routinely listening to read This Article as a bit of a palate... Preparation?

Because it's really spectacular.

Wow, that's quite a lot to digest.

# ? Nov 1, 2019 07:29

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/andrew_durso/status/1189926198165544960

# ? Nov 1, 2019 14:15

Echo Chamber: Oct 16, 2008; best username/post combo

The rationale for Beto's candidancy only made sense if you watched the 6th and 7th seasons of The Worst Wing.

# ? Nov 2, 2019 00:34

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1193946875218583552

:captainpop:

# ? Nov 11, 2019 18:51

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1193946875218583552

haha I'm either blocked or the original tweet is deleted

we're gonna get an episode out the door this week I promise, it just got too hectic last week

# ? Nov 11, 2019 19:10

Acinonyx: Oct 21, 2005

Gunshow Poophole posted:

Because it's really spectacular.

This is true, but even for someone who reads way too much hell world related media, this is depressing af. Not sure how many of you have read 'Herland' but that is probably the only achievable utopia for a reason. Yikes.

I hope that you guys are just real busy and didn't die or something.

# ? Nov 21, 2019 21:00

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:06

Gunshow Poophole: Sep 14, 2008; OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069; Clapping Larry

Acinonyx posted:

This is true, but even for someone who reads way too much hell world related media, this is depressing af. Not sure how many of you have read 'Herland' but that is probably the only achievable utopia for a reason. Yikes.

I hope that you guys are just real busy and didn't die or something.

we are layin tracks tonight

and then it'll be another week off because of Thanksgiving

but thank you for your concern, it has been a bit of a ride the last month for me

# ? Nov 21, 2019 22:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Nobody Asked, We Didn't Listen - The Worst Wing Podcast!

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