West Wing Compared to House of Cards

We recently began watching the old series West Wing and have found it as delightful and uplifting as when we watched the series when it was new. We’re about half way through it.

Then we began to hear about a modern equivalent on a talk show, The House of Cards on Netflix starring Kevin Spacey. We have watched several episodes of it now as well. It has a great cast with superb acting, good writing, and a unique format with the lead character turning to the audience revealing what is really on his mind, as he cajoles, manipulates, and is involved in all types of political intrigue.

When we watch West Wing we feel good and positive and feel some idealism of what good folk can do as they seek to lead a democratic country. When we watch The House of Cards we feel a bit bummed out and depressed and cynical about the country as though we were not cynical about it already.

I checked other web sites and News vendors and find that my observations are widely shared, that The House of Cards is indeed very cynical and reflects and perhaps promotes the cynicism our citizens have about our do nothing congress and its inability to aid it citizens.

Both shows have Democratic administrations but today Democrats, in my opinion, have become Republicans and there are no Republicans left, in the historical, traditional ideological sense. For that reason I might vary from the norm and conclude that perhaps West Wing is more realistic than The House of Cards in a limited sense.

West Wing had the premise that the White House could do something, that idealism could work in the right hands of smart intelligent people. As I have heard said, (perhaps by Clinton) that if you ask most White House staffers about their job they will say that no work was ever as hard as their work at the White House and no work was as rewarding.

The House of Cards seems to harken back to the days of Lyndon Johnson who was a political manipulator par excellence. I was not a great fan of LBJ but I do admire what he accomplished in the area of civil rights, and social programs, which he likely knew would cost him the presidency.

In addition to others who have compared these two programs I think there is another and more significant influence that is not bought out in either program (though I would not it would have been as relevant or blatant in the West Wing days.)

Both programs deal with the power of the White House and of Congress to get things done, whether for good or ill. I think that is a false premise. It is especially false today and has its origin beginning with the Reagan administration and deregulation. My premise is that real power is not found in our legislative bodies but in the powers that control them, that has bought them lock stock and barrel. Big money now runs the country and congress and the White House plays ball with them or they cannot get elected. For example, in The House of Cards congressmen write legislation to their purposes. My guess is that today they don’t write legislative bills, they are written for them by lobbyists paid by the wealthy interests.

This was made blatantly clear with the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court when corporations were declare people and gave rise to unlimited money gifts to campaigns of those running for office who did they bidding.

As a result of this we live in a country that remains productive but where half the wealth and benefits of our economy go to 400 people. And then there are those wealthy who have the audacity to claim rich people have more because they work harder. We live in a country that turns its back on the working poor by not having a living minimum wage that has kept up with the economy. With cutbacks in education, we saddle those who aspire to upward mobility with backbreaking debt that trap them for a lifetime. Families and individuals are working harder than ever but receiving less and less of the economic pie.

We live in an oligarchy, government by the rich and for the rich. We have to get a whole lot smarter and more active if we are to reclaim democracy, otherwise the American experiment, as Alex de Tocqueville, wrote about my be a short lived experiment.

I have hope for this country but it is not based on the wealthy suddenly developing a social conscience, though a few do show that or average citizens becoming aware and organized by their own efforts to combat the power elite.

My hope perhaps is well described by Parker Palmer, a broken heart. A heart that is not broken and cannot be healed, but a heart that is broken open to become more aware of other broken hearted people who can unite in their brokenness to work to make things better. Of necessity this will have to come from the ground up.