How The Democrats Gradually Lost Dixie - And Why It Didn't Have To Happen: Introduction

 

On the op-ed page of The New York Times in March of 1972 a prominent Democrat running for President gave an analysis as to why he was running:

“Once the Democratic Party reflected true expressions of the rank-and-file citizens. They were its heart, the bulk of its strength and vitality. Long ago it became the party of the so-called intelligentsia. Where once it was the party of the people, along the way it lost contact with the working man and the businessman. It has been transformed into a party controlled by intellectual snobs…”

As political perceptions go at the time and as a foreshadowing of things to come, this was a warning on the scale of Eisenhower’s farewell address about the military industrial complex more than a decade before. I have little doubt it was given less attention to by its audience and the main reason was the author: Alabama Governor George C. Wallace.

One person who no doubt ignored it the most was George McGovern. His campaign for President represented the ideological opposite of Wallace’s: Wallace represented the far right of the Democrats; McGovern the far left. When two weeks later Wallace won the Florida primary with an astounding 42 percent of the vote – and McGovern finished in last with 6 percent – it should have been a more visible message to the political establishment. The ‘intellectual snobs’ and ‘intelligentsia’, particularly in the media, chose to see it as a sign of either an aberration or in the case of Hunter Thompson, as a sign that Florida was politically irrelevant. (He wrote as much in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, yet another sign of his failures as a political journalist.)

Wallace spent his primary run mocking McGovern at most of his rallies while McGovern took the approach of pretending Wallace was someone he could ignore as an obstacle to the Democratic nomination. At one point, according to Theodore White he joked that he would deal with Wallace by making him ambassador to South Africa. Every other political candidate acknowledged Wallace was a threat; McGovern basically didn’t talk about him.

The reason he could afford to do this was because of his approach to the primaries. In what was the last time in campaign history this would be possible McGovern’s approach to the primaries was to contest certain ones but ignore others. This meant putting up only a token presence in states like Indiana and West Virginia and not even putting his name on the ballot in states like Tennessee or North Carolina. It’s worth noting that up until May 15^th, the day Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer and his campaign was suspended Wallace’s run had gotten him far more votes than McGovern. Wallace had gotten 3.3 million votes to McGovern’s 2.1 million (and Hubert Humphrey’s 2.6 million.) It was only because Wallace’s campaign was less professional then McGovern’s that he was not more of an obstacle: in multiple states the Wallace campaign didn’t file for delegates and it severely cost him throughout the run. In Wisconsin, he finished a surprise second to George McGovern, beating Humphrey. In Pennsylvania, with almost no campaign presence he finished second to Humphrey. Because of the flaws in his campaign even though he trailed Wallace by more than 1.2 million votes on May 15^th, he was substantially ahead in delegates with 560 to Wallace’s 324 and Humphrey’s 311.

The attempt on Wallace’s life ended his run for the Democratic nomination. It also dealt a vital blow to any chance McGovern had for beating Nixon. Wallace’s presence was something that McGovern was counting on and that Nixon feared.

McGovern was known for refusing to deal with Wallace at the Democratic convention where the ‘Stop McGovern’ campaign was willing to do so. This was not done so much out of nobility but strategy. A key plank of the McGovern campaign for the general election was Wallace being turned away from the Democrats and then running as a third party candidate. McGovern assumed that, just as in 1968, Wallace would split the Southern vote with Nixon and as with Humphrey, give me a fighting chance for a victory in the electoral college.

  Nixon viewed Wallace in a similar vein but he was far more concerned about Wallace’s strength in the North. Wallace had taken nearly 12 percent of the vote in Ohio, 10 percent in Michigan, 8 percent each in Illinois and Pennsylvania and 9 percent in New Jersey. Humphrey had carried Pennsylvania and Michigan as a result. He also feared how it might affect him in California which only his allure of the native son had helped him carry.

After Wallace’s shooting Nixon was certain he would get Wallace’s votes and that would carry him to victory. And he was right: he took 49 of 50 states that November. His biggest margins were in the Deep South, where he carried the five states Wallace had won in 1968 – Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi by margins ranging from 66 percent to 78 percent in Mississippi.

 

THESIS

 

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed LBJ famously said “We just handed the South to the Republicans for a very long time.” He foresaw that the African-American vote would desert the Republicans and move to the Democrats as well as the fact that the South would become rich territory for the GOP going forward.

Sixty years later few can doubt the truth of that prophecy. But there is a difference between how the far right views the former issue and how the far left views the latter. The GOP acknowledges it has a problem but other than token efforts its made real effort to change things on a policy wide because they are afraid of scaring off its base. The Democrats also acknowledge that they have a problem but it is telling that extreme left would rather create new states – DC and Puerto Rico – then even consider making an effort to organize in the existing ones.

I should mention, in case I’m asked, that I believe that the District of Columbia and perhaps Puerto Rico (in the latter case, it’s not clear that’s a consensus) are entitled to full and equal representation. But I am also smart enough to know that the reason that Democrats are in favor of it has little, if anything, to do with fair and equal representation. I’m familiar with proxy battles between both sides by now and no matter how much you want to argue otherwise the loudest voices arguing for their representation are as cynical and full of double-speak as the one’s against it.

Wallace was a horrible individual but no one could deny his political acumen. As I wrote in my series on him last year Wallace was the first of a long line of politicians – almost all of them conservative – who were able to win votes in both primaries and general elections because the public perception of the Democratic Party was exactly how he phrased in his op-ed. McGovern’s campaign was built on many aspects of the Democratic coalition today but it also played in to leaving out the working man and in favor of the intellectual snob. Many of those who worked for McGovern would no doubt have considered that a virtue and no doubt still believe that McGovern was cheated out of the Presidency because of Richard Nixon and all of his dirty tricks. Nixon and Watergate basically gave the left an excuse to argue that they hadn’t really lost the 1972 election but that Nixon had stolen it. This ignores several major realities – not the least of which was their own incompetence running the campaign at the convention – but as I’ve come to see, the extreme left is just as good at ignoring reality as the extreme right is.

What is worth noting -  and what this series will attempt to enlighten – is that the Democratic Party’s loss of the South was not pre-ordained the moment LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. On the contrary while the GOP gained immense strength in the South in the elections for President, on the state and federal level the Democratic Party had a strong foothold even in states Wallace and Nixon would carry. They would maintain that hold on the South until the end of the 20^th century when it was finally diminished to a fraction of its strength. And as electoral history taught us while the Republican regained control of the White House for five of the eight Presidential elections starting in 1968 and extending until 2000, the three that they won were one by products of what would be called ‘the New South’. Jimmy Carter  of Georgia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas were, critically, both governors of states that had gone for Goldwater in 1964, Wallace in 1968 and Nixon in 1972.

The problem that the Democrats had as a national party from the 1970s to the end of the century was the divide between what was then called the liberal wing and their more conservative Southern wing. One must remember that the left wing has historically held the South in contempt since the era of slavery. The major fights in the Democratic Party from the 1930s until the 1960s was between the northern liberals and the southern conservatives. Because the Democratic Party was essentially a Southern institution from the end of Reconstruction to the start of the Depression in both houses of Congress they had leadership and managed to keep Jim Crow in place even after the left began to make an inroad in the party with FDR’s landslides. The numbers began to shift in the left’s favor in the 1960s and by the early 1970s they were in the majority in the Democratic Party.

But there had always been a bigotry between the liberals of the North and the conservatives of the South in the Democrats and that animosity never went away even after the Civil Rights Bill was passed. The left could never see that the South was changing before their eyes and that was certainly true with both Southern Democrats they elected President. There has always been a divide between the left’s desire to lose disastrously in a noble cause – as they did far too often in their races for the White House starting in 1968 – rather than pick candidates who could win and have to govern.

What these articles will illustrate is how the South began to change with the passage of the Civil Rights act in ways the Democrats in the North weren’t willing to see and indeed many won’t even with the benefit of hindsight. It will illustrate how the two Southerners who became President were viewed with contempt by both the party leaders and the media that may very well have not been directed to the members of the liberal wing of the party – and that it helped cripple one of them and did much to hurt the other in the eyes of history. Both men did bring the abuse upon their own heads but their birthplace never helped.

By showing this I hope to show a story the far left doesn’t want to be told because it negates their perception of the South as a third-world country they’d rather visit less than the actual third world. The left needs to comprehend that the South will not disappear much as they would like to ignore it and that despite their best wishes a national party can’t be solely a party of intellectual snobs and ignore the working man. This is a lesson that the nation needs to learn and I think it has to start with the South. Pretending the parts of the country we don’t like will go away if we ignore them is not something any nation can do and expect to have a future. We have to learn from our mistakes or were just going to keep repeating them.

 

Massachusetts & South Carolina at the Sectional Divide: Conclusion

 

 

On December 15^th 1860 Barnwell Rhett met with the British consul Robert Bunch. He had no portfolio to speak with official capacity to a foreign diplomat but Rhett cared little for that. He made it clear that on February 15^th  South Carolina – as opposed to the Confederacy which hadn't been formed yet – would be a new nation and he wanted to establish a strong relationship with Great Britain. He told him  that secession would go smoothly, disregarded Buchanan's own message to conference. Bunch refused to let the concern over slavery saying his country wouldn't trade with a nation arguing for resumption of the slave trade. When Rhett turned argumentative Rhett said that France and Germany certainly would, which went against what both nations had made clear.

Bunch was unimpressed by Rhett, who reported to London that 'the man indulges in an absurd invective against all who differ from him." Many South Carolinians agreed. That December, they denied his nomination for governor in favor of Francis Pickens. A week later the secession convention that met in Columbia would nominate Rhett for President but he would only receive five votes on the first ballot. Rhett was going to be accepted as prominent voice in the secession deliberations but not leadership.

After South Carolina announced its secession Rhett and Christopher Memminger produced two separate documents. Rhett's was more sweeping and forceful tracing northern 'despotism' to nearly the beginning of the Republic. "All fraternity between the North and South is lost, or has been converted into hate," it read. Bunch had no more use for the manifesto then its author. He termed it "weakly reasoned and, in some respects, offensive.

On February 4^th all of the states that had seceded sent representatives to form the new Confederacy. Rhett had been elected head of the South Carolina delegation and anticipated a powerful role for himself in guiding the deliberations. His vision consisted of numerous distinct elements. There must be a permanent separation from the American North and the creation of a confederation of independent and equal states with no further discussion of compromise and no temporary provisional government in the South pending a permanent constitution. The new nation had to be built upon a foundation of slavery and made up exclusively of slave states – no mingling of slave and free states. The new nation must be dominated politically by slave interests: therefore no three-fifths rule for counting slaves for political representation. The African slave trade would not be curtailed. Economic and foreign policy would be based on free trade and fiscal policy would preclude appropriations for internal improvements such as roads, bridges or canal.

The overwhelming majority of these principles were not shared by his fellow delegates with all of them except free trade and internal improvement issues becoming rejected. Even worse the convention seemed bent on elevated Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy, a man who Rhett had never liked in part because he had never felt much for disunionists like Rhett. He was forced to vote for him out of political expediency. And Davis didn't give the founder of secession a cabinet post or a diplomatic office, no doubt because he had fed inside information about the deliberation to his own newspaper in part to criticize what was happening there.

And that was basically all the father of secession would have to do with the Confederate states he had founded. His last official position was delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress which he left in February of 1862. He returned to private life where he spent the war years excoriating Davis for what he considered his abject incompetence.  As a final insult when he attempted to run for a seat in the new Confederate Congress in 1863 in his own third district he was repudiated by his voters.  By this point he was in such debt that at the start of the war he sold 31 slaves to escape insolvency. The war would destroy his finances thoroughly, his crops would be burned when the Union invaded and the Mercury ceased publication when its presses were destroyed. He died on September 14^th 1876 at age 75 forgotten by history and even most of his fellow Confederates.

When Fort Sumter was fired upon and war began, Garrison was confronted with a dilemma. Would he support the northern war effort or oppose it in fealty to his pacifist conscience? In the end he chose to support the war and embrace the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. At the end of the war he sought to disband the American anti-slavery society of which he was president. His friend Wendell Philips argued the mission was not complete until black Southerners gained full political and civil equality, something Garrison disagreed with. He ended publication of The Liberator at the end of 1865 and didn't attend another meeting until it was disbanded in 1870 at which point the 15^th Amendment, which guaranteed the right to vote the African-Americans had been ratified. Garrison refused to attend meetings going forward and wouldn't heal his estrangement with them until 1873.

 He was forced to resign, resigned and turned his attention to other reformist causes including temperance, women's rights, pacificism and free trade.

How much he ever helped in those causes is open to question. He had played a vital role in supporting 'the rights of women to their utmost extent' ever since 1837 when the female abolitionists Angelina and Sarah Grimke had letters published in the liberation. His promotion of woman's rights within the anti-slavery movement had caused some men to leave it, among them Arthur and Lewis Tappan. Henry Stanton, the husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been among those who had left the AASS because they disagreed with Garrison's insistence that abolitionists should not participate in politics and government. They would eventually found the Liberty Party in 1840 and run James Birney for President. Garrison's decision to form a third organization might well have hurt the abolitionist cause – even though the Liberty Party only last through 1844.

But in 1870 he became an associate editor of the women's suffrage newspaper The Women's Journal and would serve as President of the American Woman Suffrage Association. He was a major figure in New England's woman suffrage campaigns during the 1870s. And yet he remained unwilling to ever take public office to the end. When Charles Sumner died in 1874, some Republicans suggested Garrison as his successor. He declined based on his grounds of moral opposition to taking office.

For all the very real morality Garrison had towards the causes he believed in his beliefs were far from perfect. He had a mixed view to Judaism,  suggesting the Jewish diaspora was the result of 'their own egotism and self-complacency." He was particularly visceral towards the Jewish American writer and sheriff Mordecai Manuel Noah. When Noah defended slavery, he referred to him as 'the lineal descendant of the monsters who nailed Jesus to the cross." That said he acknowledged the prejudice against Jews in Europe, accurately comparing it to the prejudices African-Americans faced in their daily life. He opposed a proposed amendment to the Constitution affirming the divinity of Christ on the basis of religious freedom, writing 'no one can fail to see that the Jew, Unitarian or Deist could not worship in his own way…because the Constitution under which his citizenship exists, would make faith in the New Testament a national creed."

Most importantly was, for all the causes he embraced throughout his long career, he never embraced the idea of radical redistribution of wealth or income. When pressed on the matter he said: "it is enough for me that every yoke is broken and every bondman set free."

After The Liberator folded his followers would establish a new political journal in 1865 meant to fill the gap left by the termination of that paper. That magazine is called The Nation.

 

What can the stories of the men from Massachusetts and South Carolina tell us about today about the era of political division and strife that seems closer to mirroring the decade leading up to the sectional divide with each passing day?

It must be said the causes of the far right that were best represented by the plantation lifestyle have learned lessons better than the ones on the cause of the abolitionists. It is rare even now to see a politician of the likes of Rhett, though one can see the parallels of those who find the leaders in the cause lacking in the demand for purity to it as members of conservative demand with each generation a cause for purity that previous elected officials can never match.

That said most of the politicians from this section of the country seem to have adopted the manner not so much of Rhett but of Pickens Butler and the F Street Mess. They know the best way to get your most far reaching dystopian vision is to work the system from within. One can see parallels between the politicians of  F Street and later organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society as well as the same originalist believes that led to Dred Scott.

But at every level of this this cause in the South has been based on a simple realization: one needs electoral power from the voters to get your vision realized. And for the last hundred and fifty years they have operated on Napoleon's principle that men are more easily governed by their vices then their virtues or in the case of the South and rural America, their prejudices rather than the better angels of their nature. Whether it is most race baiting Jim Crow southern politician from the 1870s to the 1920s, Dixiecrats like Richard Russell and Strom Thurmond,  or more modern conservative destroyers such as Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich, all have fundamentally understood this basic concept. I agree with many of my colleagues that this decision is morally bankrupt. Where I fundamentally differ is considering how effective it has been for this group of politicians unless they are faced with political or economic opposition from other voices these politicians have no motivation to stop doing son.

By and large it seems that in the more than a century and a half the cause of the reform has far too often been led not so much by the heirs to Lincoln or even the Sumners or Henry Wilsons but rather the Garrisons, who pride moral purity and activism over involvement in the political process. One can argue that so many of the major reforms in our society have been impeded as much by the division between the activism versus politician divide as the opposition against them from the powers that be. We see in so many of the movements that Garrison and his colleagues thought for – civil rights, suffragettes, and the antiwar movement. That these causes managed the advances they did was mainly because their were political figures who frequently warred with the activists for the cause and they prevailed. In this century those political figures who know how to build consensus and coalition for reform are all not only nearly non-existent but even the ones who try to do so or lambasted for failing similar tests of purity.

What is striking about the divisions we face today is not only that they still mostly involve rural and urban America but that several of the obstacles that may have made those divisions easier to maintain should have been removed. Most important of this is how much easier it is now to travel from Massachusetts to South Carolina. It is worth noting that the lion's share of the abolitionists never bothered to go to the antebellum South to even see the practices they condemned where as some of the Southern plantation owners by necessity came north to Washington. These days highways, railroads and airplanes make it infinitely for each side to see the reality of the world they condemn. But by and large that urban section chooses not to, content to condemn it from afar.

And it's worth noting that when it came to the cause of slavery the south had one moral advantage that was the Achilles Heel and the fact that abolitionists never seemed that interested in economic inequality was a talking point. No less an individual then Jefferson Davis pointed out that the "Boston mill worker or the New York  laborer is free only to the starve'. This hypocrisy registered very much with Southerners and even some Northerners: why did so many New England and Norther citizens care so much about the well-being of African-Americans in a section of the country they never even went near yet ignored those of the white poor in their own neighborhoods? Garrison and so many of his fellow politicians never seemed to realize this hypocrisy and as we have seen men like Henry Wilson were more than willing to use the openly anti-immigration beliefs of the Know-Nothings in order to gain political power for the anti-slavery cause and never thought twice about the deeper implications.

One also sees the roots of so much of the left's decision that politics is not the solution to the problems of today. There were far more political parties in the era of Garrison and his abolitionists during the leadup to the Civil War and The Observer made it very clear that sufficient to the abolitionist cause. From here we see the argument that a party that protects the status quo (as the Free Soil and Republicans argued against the expansion of slavery) was the equivalent of a party that was going to make things worse (as the Democrats were more or less in favor of it). What's striking is that with the notable exception of John Brown's horribly planned rebellion, by and large the abolitionist cause had no alternative option of their own to suggest and spent their days mostly arguing that even politicians like Sumner and Wilson were inadequate to the cause.

What were they looking for in a political leader, one has to ask. Were they waiting for a man to run on the platform saying that if elected he would immediately emancipate every single slave in bondage, imprison all slave owners for crimes and do so with no violence at all? It's impossible to imagine men like Garrison as being that naïve even on the idea that any man in the country could run on that platform and hope to be elected, much less carry it out. Yet that would appear to be the implication. In their absence of coming up with an alternative so many of Garrison's scions seem more content complaining how all political figures are failing because they are not bringing about the ideal progressive vision. That they seem to know only what it isn't rather than what it is, much less have no idea how to realize it, is irrelevant to the discussion.

Of course in the aftermath of the Civil War both sides would rewrite history as to what it was really about. By far the Southern version came out first and is far more prevalent, the argument it was really about states' rights, that they were only acting in relation to 'Northern aggression', that it was never about slavery. The construction of Confederate monuments throughout the South and even certain parts of the North make it clear how much that myth has proliferated.

But in recent years an alternative version has come up from the Zinn's and Chomsky's of the world arguing that it didn't change anything and was not fought for the right reasons. They argue that Lincoln's decision to preserve the Union and even to free the slaves lacked meaning because he didn't believe in full equality for the black man, even though most Americans didn't agree with those values either. They argue that his successors gave up Reconstruction and left the black man to himself in the South, ignoring the fact that in the decade that followed the only way to make sure it had been enforced was at the barrel of a gun. Some will even argue the passage of the 14^th Amendment was a failure because it failed to take in to account the prison system that prevails to this day and that somehow men like Thaddeus Stevens failed to see what the future would look like. Many still argue that America is forever stained by slavery and is incapable of ever changing because of the fact that slavery was left standing in the Constitution. This argument might have some weight in Garrison's era. That people still argue it  now that African-Americans can among other things, drink at water fountains or go to water fountains and not be arrested for it some sections for the country, that they can vote, run for office and have even served as President, makes that argument much harder to hold water. Yet some still cling to it.

As I write this America is in the midst of another era of great political strife with many parallels to this era but with no single issue or argument as to argue what is causing this divide. Both sides can only argue in vague terms of 'protecting our way of life' or 'what America stands for'. Yet neither side can even tell you what their vision of it really looks like, only that the other's vision is completely and horrendously Unamerican. One side – the heirs to Rhett and Butler – have done far more work because they have built the power they did from the votes of their bases who believe in their vision. The other side – the scions of Garrison – still by and large eschew politics, saying that the far right is building a neo-fascist state while the Democrats are lacking because they are inadequate to the progressive cause.

And in both cases they are doing what their predecessors did: ignoring what the majority of Americans want. Those who argue that Lincoln was interested in preserving the Union over ending slavery ignore the fact that the results of the 1860 election showed the voters were in favor of that. Not just Republicans but those who voted for Douglas and Bell wanted the Union preserved first, even those who abhorred slavery.

  Both sides look at their agendas and will claim 'the people are with us' based on polls and both sides will argue the other is reading it wrong. And just like then, even violence against political figures is increasingly viewed strictly through a partisan lens.

I have no answers as to how to bring us together but I do know that only through the work of coalition building and finding common ground is it possible. We must look to those who view the world through a moderate lens, who understand it is only through compromise and hard work that our vision can be found, to understand that even people we loathe are entitled to a point of view even if we find it abhorrent. We must do all of it and make sure that as that great man once said that this government 'of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.'

 

In Network Paddy Chayefsky Bit The Hand That Fed Him Clean Off. We Need to Separate The Artist From the Art Here

 

Last night I was watching some of TCM's documentary about Paddy Chayefsky, to date the only screenwriter to win three Oscars for Best Screenplay. I've seen and loved many of his movies and I once had a collections of the plays for television he wrote during the 1950s. These include not just Marty but other works such as The Mother and The Bachelor Party.

He was a genius in every medium he touched, not just in television but the theater. I've seen some of his 'lesser' films such as In the Middle of The Night and The Americanization of Emily and I know what an extraordinary artist he was. And he deserves all the praise he gets for his work. But having read many books about Chayefsky's life I also know that, like many genius artists, he had a very high opinion of himself and his ego got even bigger the most movies he made and the more awards he won. And I know something that by the time he wrote Network, like so many writers of that era, he had begun to turn on the industry that had made him famous.

This is not uncommon by a long shot, particularly among writers. I saw it in William Goldman's attitude towards the industry as he got older and how he chose to lash out at it for never giving him the credit he deserved. David Mamet famously described Hollywood as 'Bambi vs. Godzilla', which is essentially blaming studios for choosing to focus on movies that draw audiences rather than making art. And a host of other writers from Charles Beaumont to Harlan Ellison and directors like Paul Schrader and Brian DePalma have frequently attacked the industry for chasing money rather than art.

I suspect that these writers do so because they can't do what they really want to do and blame the masses for going to see blockbuster films in giant numbers rather than the brilliant works they make. Some of them will hint at it in their own private writings but they are smart enough never to say the quiet part out loud. All of these intelligent men know in their hearts that Hollywood is a business first and anything else second. They know the only reason any of their visions make it to the silver screen in the first place is because the studio system they rail against thinks there's a way to make money from it. This bothers them for many reasons, not the least of which is they frequently believe what critics and their colleagues say: that they are artists in a gallant and noble profession, trying to impart wisdom to the vulgar plebs who don't get their messages. (If you've read my Criticizing Criticism series you know why it would be understandable writers would think this.) And I also think they have to believe that they are artists rather than entertainers because they really think there is shame in being the latter then the former.

Frankly I don't know why they believe this is a bad thing. Speaking for myself I have never gone to a new movie or a new television show hoping for some kind of great film that will raise my intellect, make me question my way of life and rethink my entire philosophy. I honestly think if that's my first reaction to a movie or TV show, they've completely missed the mission statement. I come to film and television wanted to escape from the world I live, to be entertaining, to disappear into a different world even if its similar to our own. All of the other stuff is secondary and should be talked or written about afterwards. This may seem facetious considering that I am  a critic myself but I'm a fan first and I really think most viewers are otherwise. There is no shame in this really but the people in Hollywood and a lot of the people who work around it seem to think there is. And this brings me, in a roundabout way, to Network.

In this most recent tribute to the film we saw new additions to Chayefsky's vision. Now in addition to everything else it is responsible for the rise of Trump (strange, last I heard it was comic book movies that were responsible for that) and how it foresaw Citizens United (as if Samuel Alito cited Ned Beatty's monologue as a footnote in the majority decision) as well as of course indicting the entire human race for being mindless automatons who will do anything they see on television. That last one, of course, is nothing new: it's basically the same argument Hollywood liberals and so many intellectuals have been making to explain why America is the way it is today. They've clearly spent a lot of time and energy in the last decade trying to find a way so much of today's America something that was in their films that was taken out of context. Oliver Stone is seen in this film showing as always the clip of Wall Street where Gordon Gekko says, 'Greed is good' and then argues people misinterpreted what he was trying to say. (Odd that he doesn't think society has taken JFK out of context and is responsible for the world we live in today. I'd argue there's a more direct link there. Another essay.)

I truly believe that so many of these people in Hollywood are trying very hard to draw a direct line between the work they've made and the world today as an effort to make sense of it. This is a flawed idea for many reasons and I may write about it later on. For now, however, I'd like to focus on Network and why I really do think Chayefsky's tone made it work as well as it did while also stating the views of the writer himself.

To be clear Network is by far one of the greatest films ever made, with some of the greatest dialogue, extraordinary images and some of the most outstanding performances of the decade and maybe of all time. It is also a polemic in which the author doesn't bother to hide his contempt for every aspect of the human race with the biggest middle finger being shown to the medium that put him on the map in the first place.

I'm not saying that Network couldn't have been the masterpiece it is without that latter being true or that it might not have become iconic if it wasn't for it. But the fact remains that Chayefsky first cut his teeth making some of the greatest plays for television during the 1950s and it was only because his big-screen adaptation of Marty became such a critical hit, eventually winning Best Picture and him his first Academy Award. Without television Chayefsky would never have been in the position to be one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. But it was clear well before he even wrote Network that there was always a part of him that felt this medium was beneath him. "Television always struck me as democracy at its worst," he said in an interview. "Give the people what they want."

This statement is, in its own way, a foreshadowing of how so many other artists often viewed working in the medium: David Chase famously later seemed to hate every minute he was working on network TV and never seemed to enjoy writing The Sopranos much either. And at its core it shows a visceral contempt by the writer for the people who potentially want to see his films or indeed anything. Oh, I'm sure he meant to attack the networks for chewing up his visions to make them more accessible to a mass audience but even that shows a measure of contempt for a person's intelligence too. That the people are too dumb to appreciate my vision.

And this contempt is shown in great form in every aspect of Chayefsky's screenplay. It's worth noting that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction in the late 1970s because of Vietnam, Watergate, inflation and all the other factors in society. (Faye Dunaway's Diana lists them all at a point in the film.) Indeed Jimmy Carter would later argue in the White House that America was undergoing a crisis of confidence for this very reason. And while Dunaway's network executive is something of a corporate monster for trying to find a way to turn this into ratings and money for the network, there's something even more cynical about how Chayefsky is arguing that this frustration itself  - this need to feel like you're doing something – is somehow meaningless because the people can only express it when they're told about it on television. That's a darker view of humanity then anything most of the characters put in the words during the film.

Indeed it's worth noting that Beale starts to lose his popularity when he starts giving speeches about how the human race and America is doomed. This comes not long after Ned Beatty's character talks to him in the board room. Left out of the discussion of this movie when it comes to it is that Beale is popular because he's giving his viewers the possibility that they can bring about great change by the actions take – something they've done when their outrage helped kill a corporate deal. After that happens Beale then starts arguing that nothing like that will happen again and humanity as a whole has run its course. I can't tell you how many times I've heard variations on this in so many left-wing articles on sites like this, particularly in the last decade. Beale is essentially arguing the left-wing point of view: the human race's best days are behind it and we are all doomed. Small wonder his ratings start to plummet after this: it's hardly a call to the barricades.

And its worth noting Chayefsky shows little compassion or use for Beale beyond his appearances on camera. For all his rage at the world, he's very much a pawn being manipulated by larger forces, the bosses at UBS and later the corporate head. One can't forget the first broadcast when he gives a speech saying that at the end of the week he will blow his brains out and everyone in the broadcast booth is so focused on doing their jobs that no one notices until he's finished. Peter Finch's energy and rage make Beale resonate and seem more dimensional than he is but Chayefsky seems more content to speak about what he's doing then show him. The discussion to have him killed is given more attention than his actual murder.

To be clear none of this makes Network any less of a masterpiece. But what it shows is that Chayefsky really thinks that the TV viewing audience – and by extension, humanity itself – is powerless against the force of capitalism, that television controls corporate greed and that people are so easily manipulated that the individual or even the group is fundamentally mindless to act on its own. I suspect this is a lot of the reason why so many critics and filmmakers love it – it expresses their opinion of humanity perfectly. They don't have to say the quiet part out loud; Chayefsky's doing it for them.

Chayefsky was not shy about his contempt for humanity: in interviews seen he is very free about it. When he's asked if he has any hope about this he says: "Yes. I hope I'm wrong." No statement could prove the ego of the man or indeed so many Hollywood liberals then this. They think the worst of humanity and it us up to humanity to prove them wrong, not to work to do go for humanity and help it.

I think that among the other things that Chayefsky predicted – but is not given credit for in these interviews – was the rise of the meanness in so many of Hollywood personalities when it comes to politics and how they show it, both in public and in their work. There's an argument that his most direct heir is not Aaron Sorkin or Oliver Stone but Adam McKay whose movies take the grim view Chayefsky shows in Network and double down on it, most notably in Don't Look Up. Films like The Big Short and Vice do not subtly make their points as Chayefsky does but lecture the audience as if they're dumb and show such a grim view of the world you leave the theater yearning for the comparatively cheerful work of Yorgos Lanthimos. McKay is just as grim and unrelenting in his satire but unlike Chayefsky doesn't have anywhere near the talent to back it up.

We are approaching the 50^th anniversary of Network's original release so I expect there will be far more discussion. Analysis and endless debate on how much it foresaw the closer we get to it as is always the case. But as critics and viewers we have to remember that context matters and at some level a movie is just a movie. By its nature it must reflect the views the writer put in at the time and that real life does not follow the arc of a screenplay, much as those in Hollywood would like it to. There's no single event in Act One that  leads to what happens in Act Three in a country's history for many reasons, not the least of which is the final page of America has not, much as these same liberals will tell you forcefully, has not been written yet.

There's also the fact that everything, including movies, only look prophetic in hindsight. They do not cause future events, much as these critics and celebrities would like to believe they do. They can't predict the future any more than they create it, and if you believe that you've been listening to far too much of the Moral Majority – you know the kind of people Hollywood hates on principle. It is the simplistic and cynical view of humanity that is at the core of not just Network but much of Chayefsky's writing in general. It's understandable particularly given the age we live in but it doesn't solve anything either.

As for myself I will always think of Network as a great film that did foresee certain events in television in particular that were to come. But I know that correlation doesn't equal causation and that even the greatest film has less power to change history then the act of the individual who chooses to work towards that goal. I am mad as hell about the way the world is and I'm not going to take it anymore. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to make it better – or to go to a movie or watching television, hoping a prophet will come along to show me the way. No I'll watch the film or show, then I'll work on the rest. Screaming out the window – that's never going to accomplish anything in the long run. Working together, that can. Network told us that too – but we missed that message.

Landmark TV Episode Anniversaries: The West Wing 'In the Shadow of 2 Gunmen' 25TH Anniversary

 

The West Wing is the first true masterpiece in the history of television that I watched every episode of from the moment it debuted until the final episode. (All of the other shows I've talked about on my column from this era I came in during the early seasons or the middle.) There was not a single moment of the first twenty-one episodes of the show that I didn't think was a master class in acting, writing, and all the other technical marks that I now know make a masterpiece but couldn't define when I was only 21. Which is why when the first season ended I had issues with the season finale – or rather the last two minutes of it.

'What Kind of Day It Has Been' (Aaron Sorkin would use this title for the first season finale or series finales of every TV show he's ever written) spends roughly fifty-five minutes of its run seeming like its going to be no different from all the others we've seen. To be sure it opens in media res with the President and the staff at a televised town hall where we see things we don't fully understand the context of, most notably when Sam gets a call from a Peter Jobson at NASA and we see Josh make a gesture we don't understand. We also do quick cut away from Secret Service Agent Gina Toscano (Jorja Fox would leave this role to jump to CSI the following fall) but then we're back dealing with the traditional minutiae we've come to love about the series: in which nothing important seems to be going on.

There's a big debate about a pilot being captured and rescued in the Middle East; CJ is feuding with Danny; Zoey and Charlie are bickering. The two most meaningful discussions seem to be about Toby's brother who is a scientist at NASA who's on a shuttle mission where one of the door's is having issues closing. This is the first time we've learned Toby had a brother (Sam points that out to Toby) and while this is going on the President goes to talk to him and tells him everything's going to be okay. Toby dismisses it: "The shuttle flies itself," Bartlet says. "No, it doesn't." But then in the final minutes Sam gets the call from NASA makes the signal to Toby and he breathes a sigh of relief we didn't know he was holding.

We also get a sense of backstory when Josh is sent to go jogging with the Vice President. Josh then tells him that the President's numbers are going up. "You've been fighting against Jed Bartlet when he was right and you've been against him when he was popular," Josh says. "You really want to be against him when he says both at the same time?" It's then Hoynes says something that gives us a whole new context:

Hoynes: If I listened to you two years ago, would I be President right now? You ever wonder about that?

Josh: No sir, I know it for sure.

This is the first time Sorkin has told us that Josh worked with Hoynes – and it's the first indication he wasn't with Bartlet from day one. In hindsight this is Sorkin's set up for the Season 2 premiere.

The real tension we see seems to be Bartlet's health. Zoey says his color is off and during the town hall he takes off his jackets because he says the lights are making him hot. So when the episode ends with Bartlet walking out past the college campus with the rest of the staff, the most we think is that making the President – who even at this stage of the show we know has MS – is going to faint in front of the masses and that will be the issue. Instead in the final minute Gina yells out "Gun" and we start hearing bullets firing everywhere and the staff running and ducking for cover. The last words of the season finale, which we hear over the credits are: "Who's been hit?! Who's been hit?!"

The fans reacted immediately to this – and not positively. I should know, I was one of them and even though I didn't go to a chatroom I spent a lot of time debating it with my father who at that point was as devoted to the show as I was. Like me, he thought it was incredibly unrealistic and a cheap gimmick, one that went against everything both of us loved about the show.

Sorkin acknowledged in the aftermath the critics hammered him about the ending. He acknowledged to multiple reporters that it 'confirmed a lot of people's problems with TV. The cliché that there must be a cliffhanger'. My problem wasn't so much the cliffhanger aspect but that it seemed like something that really did seem like it was something out of a soap opera or a police procedural – though not even Steven Bocho or Dick Wolf was willing to go near those kinds of season finales with a bargepole.

Now considering the era we live in I thought it was unrealistic because even to someone who had very little experience watching television before the 1990s I knew 'the rules'. As I said in my previous article about The West Wing I was used to regulars being killed off even at this point in my viewing experience. But in May of 2000 network TV  - and for that matter cable –  had a hard and fast rule: you didn't kill of series regulars in the first season.

(I would be remiss if I didn't mention that rule didn't survive the twentieth century. By the time Season 3 of The West Wing debuted another groundbreaking drama 24 would have premiered and Jack Bauer's first terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day came to a tragic end with him tearfully cradling the body of his wife in his arms. From that point on, it didn't matter if it was drama or comedy, cable, network or streaming, viewers like me knew that it was dangerous to get attached to characters because even in the first season violence and tragedy could intervene.)

Sorkin would later acknowledge in interviews that this was part of the plan. At this point Bartlet was in the middle of his administration. As he said in an interview "the assassination attempt was important to show how he got to the White House." He had planned that very scenario even while the first season was still going on and he intended to set it up for the season 2 premiere.

The incredible blowback of the season finale, I should point out, did nothing to diminish the love the Emmys lavished on it that summer. It was nominated for eighteen Emmys and that September made history when it won nine, breaking the record held for wins by a drama that Hill Street Blues and ER each held with eight apiece. (That record stood for fifteen years when Game Of Thrones broke it.) In addition to Outstanding Drama Series, the show also won Best Director, Best Writing, Best Supporting Actor for Richard Schiff and Best Supporting Actress for Alison Janney (the first of four she won). And one of the nominations it got was for Single Camera Picture Editing for a Series for the season 1 finale.

Still when Season 2 premiered on October 4, 2000 (the fall week was delayed because of the 2000 Olympics) could The West Wing make the viewers forgive Sorkin for what he put us through in the season finale? We know the answer to that question because the season premiere "In The Shadow of Two Gunmen' was nominated for Best Writing in a drama the following summer and Thomas Schlamme would win his second consecutive Emmy for directing that episode. This episode ranks on imdb.com as the second highest rated episode by fans of the entire series; only the season two finale 'Two Cathedrals' ranks above it, and that episode regularly makes the short list of the greatest episodes in TV history, period. (I'll be dealing with that episode in due time, trust me.)

The episode begins moments after the shooting. Bartlet has been hauled into his limousine by Ron Butterfield (Michael O'Neill) the head of secret service. Butterfield has broken fingers and Bartlet wants him to go a hospital. Butterfield says he's putting him in the White House. Bartlet starts to rant and he's just saying: "But let's make sure I'm tucked into bed" when Butterfield notices a spot of blood on the President's lip. Just as he collapses Butterfield shouts "GW! Blue!"

While this is going on everyone is back at site of the town hall, and the chaos hasn't remotely died down. Gina knows that there was someone on the ground who gave a signal before the guns starting blazing. He was wearing a cap but for the life of her she can't describe it. Toby finds himself going over to Josh who we last saw running to a gate. He starts talking to him but Josh doesn't answer. Then the camera pulls back – and we see the massive blood over his chest.

I need to be clear; even at this stage of The West Wing Josh was above and beyond my favorite character. I'd been pissed that Bradley Whitford hadn't even been nominated for an Emmy in Season 1. (They more than made up for it the following season.) Did I think Josh was going to die? I mean, his name was still listed in the opening credits so I knew they probably weren't going to kill him off that soon. But that didn't mean my heart didn't go to my throat when he fell over and Toby, who had been a rock for the entire first season, could barely get out: "I need…I need a gurney!" Crash to the opening credits.

The first part of the episode takes place mostly in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. What's interesting is that so much of the power comes in the quiet moments, many of which are deeply moving. The last thing Bartlet does before he goes into surgery is kiss Leo on the cheek. Mrs. Landingham and Margaret are in the White House when the shooting happens and Margaret's attention is drawn to what's happening first. She goes still. Back at the West Wing Toby is talking brusquely to Bonnie who doesn't immediately react and then Toby awkwardly but sincerely hugs her. And as I mentioned in my article on Janel Moloney she makes a powerful impression in her first scene in the present. First she goes to GW and she's frantic. She's relieved to hear the President is all right. And then Toby tells her gently what is happening with Josh. (This may be the first time the show acknowledges that Donna has deeper feelings for her boss that could beyond a devoted employee.)

The two shooters were killed within seconds of their attack but we quickly learn that they had no identification on them. Everyone knows that there was a man on the ground who gave the signal and they all know what they means. National Security Adviser Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) finally makes it clear halfway through the episode: "Somebody had to get them into the office. This was not a lonely guy who lived with his cats." Underneath everything in the first episode is the knowledge that this was a conspiracy and no one knows whether it was domestic or foreign.

This leads to Sorkin taking an opportunity to educate his audience in a way that the average viewer wasn't. McNally says the Vice President should take us to DefCon 4 and Leo says: "White House council isn't sure if he can." This is the first time most Americans most likely ever heard of the 25^th Amendment and how it works or how it's supposed to. In order to do this under the auspices of this he has to sign a letter giving the vice president power. Toby points out the obvious flaw in this: "He's hemorrhaging and he's supposed to draft a memo?"

Nancy then says it gets more complicated if you've read Section 202 of the National Securities Act of 1947. There's a pause and CJ says deadpan: "Let's assume I haven't."  According to it the Secretary of Defense will be the principal assistant to the President on all matters pertaining to National security. Leo asks under what circumstances this applies and Nancy it says its unclear. Toby's response: "Yes because with something of this magnitude of importance you'd want things to be as ambiguous as possible."

The meat of the first part is the flashback which begins when Josh is brought into GW barely conscious and trying to blink. We then flashback to him in a meeting with John Hoynes in which the two are arguing about talking about social security on the campaign.

Outside the meeting Josh says that Hoynes is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination by at least thirty points and "I don't know what were for. I don't know what we're against. Except we seem to be for winning and against someone else winning." Hoynes blows him off, saying that they're going to be in the White House in a year.

Josh is walking away and he runs into Leo. At that point Leo is Secretary of Labor and while the two know each other they're not friends. It's here we learn Josh's father is going through chemo and being a pain in the ass about the squirrels eating seeds in the bird feeder. Leo says he wants Josh to see Jed Bartlet speak in Nashua. Josh assumed this is a bid for a Cabinet position in the Hoynes administration because Hoynes is going to win. When Leo presses the two have another classic exchange:

Josh: Democrats aren't going to nominate another liberal academic former governor from New England. We're dumb, but we're not dumb.

Leo: Nah, I think we're exactly that dumb.

When Josh asks why Leo says: "Because that's what sons do for old friends of their father."

On his way to Nashua Josh stops in New York where Sam is working for Gage Whitney. The two are old friends to the point that Sam can talk about getting a hot dog at 9 AM and Josh goes along with it. Josh wants Sam to come speechwriting for Hoynes and Sam casually mentions he's engaged. Josh says he has to do something dumb in New Hampshire.

Sam then says: "Hoynes. He's not the real thing, is he?" Josh acknowledges as much but its clear he's committed to it. About to leave Josh says to Sam: "Hey if I see the real thing in New Hampshire, you want me to tell you?" Sam says dryly: "You won't have to tell me. You have a really bad poker face." By this point we know Josh well enough to know this is true.

The last person we meet from the old guard is Toby, who's part of the Bartlet campaign. He's been a political operative his whole life  - "there was a period I was in grade school' – but he's never been part of a winning campaign. He's getting drunk because he expects to be fired that night.

There's a very sparse attended town hall going on in Nashua which indicates at this point Bartlet can't even draw crowds in his native New Hampshire for President. There's debate going behind the scenes about what Bartlet should say about his voting for the New England Dairy Farming Compact which has clearly been a bone of contention.

One of the farmers gets up and says that by doing so he hurt him to the tune of ten cents a gallon. He voted for Bartlett both for Congress and governor and he wants him to explain.

Bartlet says: "Yeah. I screwed you. You got hosed."

(Script direction: All the aides look like they want to kill themselves.)

Bartlet: Today for the first time in history the largest group of Americans living in poverty are children…If fidelity to freedom of democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says we shall give our children better than we ourselves received. Let me put it this way. I voted against the bill because I didn't want to make it harder for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the President of the United States, you should vote for somebody else.

Here are the stage directions from Sorkin. "Bartlet gets half-hearted applause at best. It wasn't his night, it wasn't his crowd, but mainly that last response wasn't what they wanted to hear. Except one man."

Josh sits their stunned, his crossword unfinished, his coat not fully off. He's found the real thing.

Something significant is going on. After a campaign meeting where Bartlet is ill-tempered towards his advisors to the point of arrogance, he walks off. Leo then proceeds to fire everyone who isn't Toby, which stuns even Toby. Bartlet is annoyed with Leo about this, saying that he fired everyone he knew and that team helped him win all of his previous elections. Leo laughs at this:

"No seriously that's a real political accomplishment considering your family founded this state. Were you even opposed in any of those elections?"

Jed and Leo have a conversation where its clear that Jed doesn't think he has a chance in hell and that Leo is bigger in the party then him. (This is the first time the show implies that Leo could have been President himself had he wanted, a story that will play out after Sorkin departs the show.) It's then Leo explains why Bartlet must run:

"Because I'm tired of it year after year, having to choose between the lesser of 'who cares'. Of trying to get excited about a candidate who can talk in complete sentences. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that."

It should be stated that this is the first time Sorkin has stated directly so much of the liberal frustration with politics in the era of the 24 hour news network and spin doctors. I'm reminded of Elaine May's line of "devoting one's life to an era that perished before you were even born" when this argument has come up in my lifetime. But in fiction – and in particular when we were about to approach an era in television where idealism would be smashed at the political level as well as everywhere else – I still find it something refreshing and something to strive for, even if never can match reality. The first part of the episode ends with Bartlet in a hospital gown, looking at Josh still in surgery. He says simply to Leo: "Look what happened."

Part II of the episode opens with a spectacular scene in which the signal man is apprehended by the FBI in a convenience store. It's worth noting that when we learn the man's identity and why everything happened the viewer can forgive almost entirely the way Season 1 ended.

One of the subplots of Season 1 was how Charlie (Dule Hill) had not long after he had been hired had begun to date Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) who had just begun attended classes at Georgetown. Not long after this Charlie began to get death threats from white supremacists groups and neo-Nazis. Charlie had refused to stop dating Zoey and Bartlet had to persuade her to stop him from being seen with her. Leo had actually held this over the President's head as a sign of his squishiness at one point: "That guys gets death threats, because he's black and he dates your daughter. He was warned: "Do not show up. Your life will be in danger.' He said: 'To hell with that, I'm going anyway. You said no.'"

Now in the aftermath of Bartlet's shooting he tells both his daughter and Charlie who the shooters were. Members of West Virginia  White Pride. Charlie asks the obvious question: "They tried to kill you because I was dating Zoey?'" Bartlet says simply. "They weren't trying to kill me.' Charlie takes this in. He says okay three times and then leaves the room. Bartlet says to Leo: "We don't know what the collateral damage will be.'  I should mention that not long after this Charlie and Zoey end up breaking up, though it has never been clear to me this was a flaw in Sorkin's writing or something to do with Moss's schedule. After the third episode of the series Zoey doesn't appear again until halfway through Season 4. Charlie and Zoey will begin seeing each other by the end of the series but by that point Sorkin had long since left the show.

It's during Toby's discussion with Ron Butterfield about a problem he has that we get the official word on why what happened what happened:

"It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Gina's fault. It wasn't Charlie's fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It was an act of madmen…We got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car. And at 150 years and five stories up the shooters were down 9.2 seconds after the first shot was fired. I  would never let you not let me protect the President. You tell us you don't like something; we figure out something else. It was an act of madmen."

Michael O'Neill, like so many other first season characters, essentially disappears for the rest of the season, returning again in Season 3 but like so many other characters he does so much with his little screen time. In the world of Sorkin there are no small parts, certainly none that don't deserve the best dialogue

While this is going on we watch as the rest of the Bartlet team is assembled. I've written about how Donna ended up there and Sam arrives when he 'looks at Josh's face'. But CJ's arrival is the most interesting because she's in the last place we expect her to be  - working in Hollywood for a public relations firm.

The scenes involves CJ being fired from her job and ending up working for Bartlet are both broadly farcical and contain satire about how Democrats may truly feel about Hollywood. C.J.'s worked in political campaigns and fundraising for the organization Emily's List. In a way it makes sense she's working in California, considering she grew up there and went to Berkeley but ending up working for an LA PR firm reveals how bad she is at it. There's an argument that there's a certain overlap – massaging egos of studio heads is not that different from politicians – but you get the feel that CJ is unhappy because in her mind, the stakes are so small.

She's fired after Roger Becker, the head of Atlantis shows up and is unhappy because of the Golden Globe nominations which CJ didn't know about. (Her response: "Am I up for something?" is another great in-joke because The West Wing was nominated the previous winter – and Janney would be a fixture at the Globes ever since.) Becker is also upset because the list of most powerful people in Hollywood has been released which leads to one of the greatest exchanges Sorkin ever wrote:

Becker: I dropped from third to ninth. Do you know how many people were ahead of me?

(Pause)

CJ: Eight?

When CJ relates this to Toby later on as the cause of her getting fired their exchange is equally brilliant:

Toby: Does he still make the playoffs or is there a cut-off…

CJ: They take it seriously around here.

During this exchange CJ losing her contacts and breaks her glasses getting out of a taxi. She goes back to her home where Toby is waiting. CJ can't see where she's going so naturally she falls into her pool. Toby is unconcerned:

Toby: Could you maybe make your way to dry land?

They clearly know each other quite well, though I don't recall how exactly. Toby tells CJ that he's here on instruction from Leo McGarey to work for Jed Bartlet. This leads to another classic exchange:

CJ: How much does it pay?

Toby: How much were you making before?

CJ: $550,000 a year.

Toby: "This pays $600 a week.

CJ: So this would be less?"

CJ then asks if McGarey knows she's only worked local campaigns, never national. Toby says yes. "It's graduation day."

CJ then asks the important question: "Is Jed Bartlet a good man?"

Toby says: "Yes" though he has to say it twice. Perhaps he's not sure

We then see the campaign basically together in Iowa where Bartlet has finished a strong third. Josh and the rest explain the plan, which is to bypass New Hampshire and go straight to South Carolina. Bartlet knows they won't win there and Josh says they just have to finish second. They then discuss how the next few primaries will go leading to Super Tuesday where Hoynes will win the South and they'll win the North and the industrial mid-west. High noon will be at the Illinois primary.

Bartlet listens to this with an air of almost arrogance finishing with: "All that and we've saved the public the trouble of having to vote. What's next." When they try to explain Bartlet says: "Yes I know. When I say, 'what's next I mean I want to move on." He then walks away. Josh then says: "Well I feel bathed in the warm embrace of the candidate." Leo: "He's really very easy to like, once you get to know him?." "How many people get that far?" "Not that many," Leo admits.

If you've paid attention to the show so far you know that Josh's father died the night they won the Illinois primary. But by this point we're paying attention to everything else that's going on including another wonderful exchange between Leo and Margaret.

Margaret tells Leo that's she gotten pretty good at forging the signature of the President.

Leo: "On a document removing him from power and handing it to somebody else?"

Margaret, in her naïve fashion: "You think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?"

Leo: "I think White House Counsel would say it was a coup d'etat!

 As Margaret is leaving the office:

"And what you are doing practicing forging the President's signature?"

Margaret: "It's just for fun.

Leo: We've got checks and balances, separation of powers and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill!"

But as anyone who loves this absolute masterpiece of an episode the highlight comes in the final flashback. They've just won the Illinois primary and Bartlet is still in a bad mood. Abby is around and looks at Josh. "You can say it."

Josh gets it off his chest: "Your husband's a real son-of-a-bitch, Mrs. Bartlet."

Abby, who is keeping more secrets than Josh knows, tells him her husband isn't ready.

After the announcement of victory is played and Celebrate by Kool and the Gang comes on Josh is an ebullient mood. Then Donna comes in looking sad and tells him: "Your fathers dead.

We then see Josh in an airport trying to catch a flight back to Connecticut. First we see Secret Service agents show up and then Bartlet sits next to Josh telling him how sad he is his father died. Much of what happens is Josh's trying to convince Jed to go back and Jed is there to comfort him. But for the first time in the flashbacks we see the Bartlet we know and love as he says the comforting, fatherly things.

Josh says: "I'd be saved a lot of bragging. Your name wouldn't have come up by the way. My son won the Illinois primary."

Its in this Bartlet says that he appreciates everything that the new people have done – Toby Ziegler, Sam Seaborn, CJ Cregg." To this point he's never properly identified them in any scene we've seen so we expect this has been going for months. Bartlet says: "And you have to be impressed I got the names right."

Then Bartlet offers to go with Josh to his father's funeral. The stage directions Sorkin provides are wonderful as Josh 'doesn't know whether to kiss this man or hit him with a two-by-four'.

"Governor California," he says. You have to go on stage and accept and then fly to California. Honestly if you don't win this nomination it's not gonna to be our fault."

But he appreciates it. As he walks down the runway we see Leo nearby. Jed says: "I'm ready."

As Bartlet and Leo head off we then hear Bartlet's voice at a convention.

Tonight, what began at the Commons in Concord, Massachusetts as an alliance of farmers and workers, of cobblers and tinsmiths, of statesmen and students, of mothers and wives, of men and boys, lives two centuries later as America! My name is Josiah Bartlet, and I accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States!"

We then fade up to hear a doctor talking to Josh who seems to have regained consciousness. Bartlet is standing nearby. Josh indicates him and whispers in his ear. The question: "What did he say?" Bartlet's response is simple: 'He said: 'What's next.'

I should add that we now live in an era where so many extraordinary TV shows begin with an incredible first season and in their sophomore season often decline and never gain what made them sensational in the first place, particularly on network television. This would be true in the 2000s, with shows like Desperate Housewives and Heroes being the most infamous examples. Other shows like 24 and Lost would be judged harshly by their second seasons even though they would regain their energy in later ones.

This was not the case with the second season of The West Wing, which while it didn't quite surpass the first had by far some of the greatest episodes in the Sorkin era in it. These include the two brilliant holiday episodes 'Shibboleth' and 'Noel',  the extraordinary '15 People' in which Toby confronts Bartlet on hiding his MS in what is essentially a play for television and the season finale Two Cathedrals. The West Wing would sweep The Golden Globes and the SAG Awards in January of 2001 and end up winning eight Emmys the following fall.

And from my perspective in my years of watching television there have been very few television dramas in history on any form, network, streaming or otherwise, that have had as magnificent a second premiere as The West Wing did. Only a handful occur to me: Lost 'Man of Science, Man of Faith' which opens with a spectacular teaser and shows us the world we'll be inhabiting all year,  Breaking Bad's '737' with its disorienting black and white opening and seeing how Walter and Jesse have to try outsmart the dangerous Tuco Salamanca and the second season premiere of House of Cards where Frank Underwood coldly and matter-of-factly pushes reporter Zoey Barko in front of an oncoming subway just before he is about to become Vice President.  To be certain there have been other dramas that began to enter the pantheon of classics in their second season after merely very good ones -  The Americans and Better Call Saul are just the most recent examples of this  - but very few came out with guns blazing as 'Shadow of Two Gunmen ' did and fewer still with the sense of understanding of where the characters had been and where they could go.