Yes, we can

Can “liberals” be ever so slightly patronising? Condescending? I fear the answer is yes, we can.

I was reminded of this last night as I finally got to see A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote. In case you’ve not heard, last year the cast of The West Wing got back together in a Los Angeles theatre to film a staging of the ‘Hartsfield’s Landing’ episode from (I believe) the third season of the show.

In the breaks where commercials would originally have been aired, various luminaries, including Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Samuel L. Jackson and Lin-Manuel Miranda, offered their “insights” into why voting is so important.

At the beginning of the show (which aired last October on HBO Max) Bradley Whitford made some self-deprecating remarks and offered assurance that this was not a partisan project, that getting out the vote was an ambition for both Democrats and Republicans. That’s when I started shaking my head. (Since when has it ever been a Republican ambition to get out the vote?)

Yes, yes, it was lovely to see the band back together, to hear Sorkin’s witty, wonderful lines again. Lovely chubbly. (Brief aside: How is it possible that Janel Moloney doesn’t seem to have aged a day?)

When The West Wing first hit the airwaves in 1999, Bill Clinton was still President. It was a sort of fantasy show about what politics could be like if the President actually had any integrity. Halfway through the second series Dubya was inaugurated and the contrast with reality became almost painful. But we (the left leaning of the world) continued watching because we loved the fantasy. After last night I might even drag out the DVDs and watch the whole series again. I’m still shaking my head, though.

What exactly was the point of this exercise? The only way to watch this show was on HBO Max. I’m not even sure what the hell HBO Max is. I only know the content is not available to me, even though I pay to subscribe to HBO as part of my cable package.

Does anyone in Arkansas or Kentucky or West Virginia or Oklahoma subscribe to HBO? A few possibly in university towns, but other than that I doubt it. There’s too much ungodliness on HBO. How many people in those (or other solidly red) states give a flying fuck what Michelle Obama or Samuel L. Jackson has to say? (How many people in any of these states ever watched a single episode of The West Wing?)

Was there a single person who watched this show who wasn’t already 100% committed to voting for Joe Biden in order to get rid of the Wankmaggot? I very much doubt it.

So, again I ask: what exactly was the point of this preaching-to-the-choir project? Was it simply to pose the question, “Can lefties be sanctimonious?”

Did you watch the trailer? Did you catch this excruciating line of CJ’s: “Freedom is the glory of God. Democracy is its birth right. And our vote matters.”

Can lefties be sanctimonious? Yes, we can.