I remember West Wing. At the time of watching I remember thinking that they were trying to show everyone as honest acting, trying to do the best they can in a complicated but well-intentioned push-pull. I still found the show enjoyable at the time, but it was clear that I was watching a romantic depiction of how liberals would like to view politics.

I think that it’s actually an interesting show to look back on because of how it couldn’t be made today. That show represented the civility that was believed to exist in American Politics and how the US political system was broadly viewed by the people of the US and beyond. At about the same time I think I did believe Europe to be a bastion of Western Civilization rather than the colonial play thing of the US.

Today we have AOC accusing nondescript Republican protesters of attempting to gang-rap her in the streets. For me that was just such an extraordinary low exertion to be made out of thin-air. It’s unpleasant to live in a climate where you can’t even pretend civility and anything goes.

If nothing else, West-Wing shows us how far we’ve fallen. In the early 2000’s we were already living through the beginning of the end. We’re sill living in the wake of the post-2001 wars. We haven’t moved on to a new stage. We’ve only just begun to reach the end of what started back then, but the Bush/Obama years were still seen as a time where the US displayed itself as an unassailable force of confidence and competence.

The ship is half-sunk: it isn’t that weird to reminisce about when it was just coming off the ship-yard. People endlessly watch Friends. People are trapped in the 2000’s and before even when they were never personally there.