It is odd that The West Wing, that
series so many leftists now find hopelessly idealistic, so often came up with
storylines that these day reflect the reality of the mindset of American
politics today. Every so often, I think
of a random plot line and I realize: “Wow. Aaron Sorkin really did see the
future.”
My recent reverie (and yes, this is
probably going to be a recurring jumping off point for many articles in this
series going forward) came from an episode that aired in November 2000 called
‘The Portland Trip’. Like almost all
Sorkin’s episodes, it is hysterically funny at times. CJ has been forced to go
on the midnight flight to Portland because she is being punished for ‘making
fun of Notre Dame’ which is President Bartlet’s alumnus and is playing Michigan
that week. The President and Danny (CJ’s
once and future boyfriend) give her a lot of grief for that fact throughout the
episode and its quite funny. But back in the White House, serious business is
afoot.
Josh (Bradley Whitford) is trying
to tell with a bill that was not uncommon in Congress until well into the first
decade of this century: The Defense of Marriage Act. In case we need reminder
of the bad old days, this was yet another in a long line of legislation (mostly
bipartisan at the time) that was designed at ‘protecting’ the institution of
marriage and was a not-at-all veiled service to homophobia. Josh is meeting
with a Republican member of Congress who is one of the votes on the committee
putting it forward. He and this Congressman Skinner go through the
conversation.
Josh: “Some offensive things were
said on the floor.”
Skinner: “I know.”
Josh: “They were said by members of
your own party.”
Skinner: “I know.”
Josh: “Congressman, you’re gay.”
Throughout the episode we come back
to the debate between Skinner and Josh, in which Skinner defends both the bill
and the rhetoric from leadership. Finally he says the obvious:
Skinner: “Ask the question!”
Josh: “How can you be a member of
this party?!”
Skinner (pause): “You’ve been
waiting all night to ask that. You know, I never understand why all you gun
control people just don’t join the NRA. They have two million members. You
could bring three million and call a vote.”
Skinner says that he believes in
the fundamentals of the Republican Party; his sexuality doesn’t define
him. (I’m going to go back to both parts
of this in a minute.)
Now as always Sorkin does his
homework, both when he explains why this bill is not unconstitutional and when
Josh calls Bartlet at the end of the episode and tells him not only that this
bill will pass but if he vetoes it, the House has the votes to override it
which will make him look weaker. Instead he advises Bartlet to just give a
pocket veto as a gesture of support to what was then called the ‘gay community’
and then start working on legislation that will make other aspects of life
easier for the gay and lesbian community.
Bartlet is more unhappy. “This is
just wrong.” Then after listing the constitutional and political reasons, he
gets to the heart of it. “We shouldn’t define love. And we certainly shouldn’t
ill-define it.” Like so many things Sorkin wrote over the years, it’s such an
obvious defense that you really wonder why it took so long for Democrats to
come up with this as a strategy.
Now I imagine most progressives who
dared to read this article stopped when they learned that there was a gay Republican
congressman and dismissed the idea as pure fantasy. That is actually why I’m
writing this article. See there are
polls out there that say that at least as many as ten percent of all gay people
are registered Republicans. The thing is, I’m pretty sure that there are, to
use an unpleasant but apt metaphor, at least that many and probably more who
are in the closet. About being a Republican, not gay.
Because let’s not kid ourselves:
these days if you talk to progressives they are accepting of LGBTQ+ of African
Americans, Latinos, women, and really all members of their coalition – but not
Republicans. They can’t accept the
concept that anyone of these minorities could believe in any one bit of the
Republican platform. They were very
clear on that fact to the late Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas and Alan Keyes; I’m
pretty sure they don’t really consider Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio real Latinos,
and I’m willing to bet they consider Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are
women only because of their biological makeup.
These days I imagine that the idea of a Democrat marrying a Republican
is as offensive to them as interracial marriage was half a century ago or gay
marriage is to many today. To them, you are a Democrat first, everything else
second. (Of course too many of the extreme cases, even a Democrat is to
conservative, but we’ll let that go for now.)
They are welcoming to all these
oppressed groups – but the conditions you must believe in every single element
of equality for all the other oppressed groups.
In this sense leftists have just as much of a purity test and
conservatives do; you disagree with one part and you’re not one of them. We saw
this very clearly when it came to Dave Chapelle. Chapelle was a hero to
millions for nearly fifteen years because of his radical views on racism in
America. I think it was when he appeared on Saturday Night Live the week of Trump’s election and used his monologue to make
a plea for unity that they began to turn on him. Over time as he increasingly
begun to make comments that are offensive to the transgender community, he has
essentially been considered part of the enemy.
You are either a hundred percent with us or you are completely against
us: leftists have no more room for middle ground than conservatives.
I recently read that in Michigan,
among the Muslim community there, Republicans have begun to make slow but
steady inroads because Muslims at their core are in agreement with the
fundamentalism views that the right has on LGBTQ+ I find it likely these people
who think this way will find a separate set of ostracism among their own
because you have to be one or the other.
100 percent of all
African-Americans, LatinX, LGBTQ+ etc. do not all vote Democrat. Yet the
party and leftist seem to act as if not only they should, but that they’re
un-American if some of them choose not do.
In the minds of progressives, they view your racial or sexual identity
as part and parcel with your political one. That this has never been true with
female voters is just another sign of their blindness: in the minds of
progressive and leftists women who vote for Republicans just aren’t real
women. They are traitors to their gender
or their race or anything else. To leftists, it is binary: you can not
be one thing and not the other. That is the same close-minded attitude that
Republicans and conservatives seem to hold is a blindness that they refuse to
see.
This actually brings me to the
other statement Skinner brings up when he talks about gun-control people
joining the NRA. In a very real sense, he is suggesting that if you can’t beat
them, join them. He is arguing that by working within a group you can create
change in a way you just can’t from without.
But this too is something progressives are not interested in doing at
all. When AOC says that she is not interested in working across the aisle, she
speaks for all-too many progressives and Democrats. Progressives will frequently speak to polling
that says there is a healthy percentage of Republicans who agree with ideas
like gun control, taxing the wealthy, abortion, and yes protecting the LGBTQ+
community. But as far as their concerned, they wouldn’t dream of trying to find
a way to reach out to those people. As far as they’re concerned, the best thing
that they can do for America is change who they vote for. Otherwise, why should they help anyone who is
lives in a red state or votes Republican even if its in the interest of the
greater good?
Hell, if leftists really feel this
way about the Republican party, why don’t AOC, the rest of the Squad and let’s
say eighteen other Democrats join the Freedom Caucus? Right now, they have
twenty-one members. Bring twenty-five call a vote. Resolved: The Freedom Caucus
shall be abolished. It’s as realistic a
solution as Sorkin has Skinner propose. But of course, who wants to even
experiment as being a Republican these days?
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