The Newsroom's Centrist Conceit

[cthulu2016]

At the heart of Aaron Sorkin' HBO show The Newsroom is the fantasy of the "good Republican," the bygone sensible Republican who brought needed balance to the excesses of the left.

Will is always identified as a Republican and he is filled with righteous indignation about what the Tea Party has done to his formerly sane Republican Party.

It's a lie... a stupid Tom Brokawesque "serious person" lie.

We invaded Iraq before the Tea Party.

The Contract On America was before the Tea Party.

Reagan was before the Tea Party.

Nixon's Southern Strategy was before the Tea Party.

Given Will's age, his first vote would have probably been cast for Nixon in 1972, several months after the Watergate break-in and after four years of Nixon breaking his 1968 promise to end the Vietnam war. Cool.

F' this faux-centrist revisionist nonsense.

(I do grant that it is a more effective approach to persuasion—if I was doing propoganda I would would seek to offer a face-saving path to the middle-of-the-road. But I don't watch TV drama for its propaganda value. At this point I find the soap opera aspects of the show more compelling than the substance.)

[JaneyVee]

1. I agree with your sentiments, but those were almost all bi-partisan compromises

But I do commend him for calling the Tea Party what they really are: The American Taliban.

[Greybnk48]

2. Agree cthulu 100%.

I also despise the CONSTANT (not shouting, just emphasis) false equivalency that "the Dems are just as bad as the Repugs" on this and that, and everything. Complete right wing spin and bullshit. The Repugs are worse in all areas when it comes to caring for the well being of all citizens/people, especially now.

[TeamPooka]

3. great post!

[jillan]

4. I have to disagree. First of all - Will is not real so he didn't vote for Reagan or Nixon. Second

I think - and this is just my interpretation - that the reason the character of Will is a republican is to show how hypocritical they are. When he said that their enemy is not Pelosi or Obama - it's this man, and showed a picture of Jesus Christ - that was a slap at the extremists in the party. He pointed out how the teabaggers have the same goals as the taliban.

Also - I am glad that the show is pointing fingers at the Dems.
How many of them voted for bombing Iraq? The Patriot Act? Not closing Gitmo? Not even trying for a public option in Obamacare? Extending the Bush taxcuts for millionaires? The Dems have been pretty weak - up until the last couple of months.


It's just a show that does a great job at pointing out how inept the msm has become.

[CitizenLife]

6. I agree with much of this...furthermore

The show resides in the framework on discourse contrived by these "factions" in the first place, one that locates the entirety of US possibility in a space that trends as "left" as the center-right, and as "right" as the far-far right. There is no authentic left, as all the historic words for the left are four-letter reaction-words in American culture. When was the last time you heard Fox News or a Republican or a Tea Party adherent warn against encroaching fascism or corporate statism? Now, when was the last time you heard anyone rail against (and, wrongly, connect the Obama admin with) "socialism?"

Our narrative reminds me of a drunkard always stumbling to the right, and wondering why the world keeps tilting the floor on him all the time...

I'll posit this in another post/thread, but the idea of having a good sense of the calculus and connectiveness of an interdependent reality - AKA "reality itself" - is absent from these factions entirely, who, in getting the discourse to oscillate to and fro from themselves to the ostensible Other, or from notions of perfect individuation to "slave-state bread line dependence," fail entirely to carve out what's knowable, and necessarily so if we are survive, about the interdependent nature of everything. All else is mythology. Sometimes useful mythology, but the question is, useful to whom?

[FightForMichigan]

5. One thing, though

Will isn't real. He's a fictional character. And a very cleverly created one, at that.

It was crazy like a fox to make Will a Republican. Why? To show what Republicans used to be, could still be and SHOULD be. As strong of a Democrat as I am, I don't want there to be just one party. Or even just two. I want there to be opposition, but I want it to be reasonable and reasoned. I want opposition that is thoughtful. One that doesn't disparage minorities, intellectuals or the poor. And while I recognize that a lot of politics is making emotional appeals, I don't want them rooted in the ugliest parts of the human psyche: racism and hate. So Will is what I wish more Republicans would aspire to be.

Beyond that, it gives the show more punch to have the criticisms of the Republican party coming from someone who is one of their own. Of COURSE a liberal Democrat would rail against the Tea Party. But to show a Republican doing it perhaps makes it harder for viewers to dismiss it as left-wing propaganda.

And I think - I hope - it's resonating with viewers.