Aaron Sorkin Says If ‘The West Wing’ Was Made Today, Making Republicans ‘Reasonable’ Would Be ‘Implausible’

Harrison Richlin
·3 min read
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In July on the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the election, Aaron Sorkin released a poorly-timed op-ed that said Republican Mitt Romney should be nominated as the Democratic nominee at the party’s convention later this month.

Later that day, Biden then endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place. Whoops.

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He quickly retracted the statement upon Harris wading into the race, but if anyone is worried the acclaimed screenwriter behind “A Few Good Men” and “The Social Network” may have lost his sense of political awareness, he is now acknowledging how far afield Republicans have come since his beloved TV series “The West Wing” first came out.

As reported on by The Hollywood Reporter at an event promoting the upcoming book, “What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service,” Sorkin discussed how he is often asked whether a version of “The West Wing” would work today.

“Honestly, I think it would for roughly the same reason it worked when it did, which is that, first of all, it was a good show, just good stories well told by a great group of people,” he said to the crowd at the Skirball Cultural Center. “But by and large, in popular culture, our leaders are portrayed either as Machiavellian or as dolts, right? It’s either a ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Veep.‘ The idea behind ‘The West Wing’ was what if they were as competent and as dedicated as the doctors and nurses on hospital shows, the cops on the cop shows, the lawyers on a legal drama, that kind of thing. And the result was something that was idealistic and it was aspirational.”

But Sorkin admitted making “The West Wing” today would require certain realities be faced, the main one being that he feels Republicans have no interest in actually doing their jobs properly.

“I’m afraid to say that right now — and maybe things will be different a year from now or two years from now, but right now — it would be implausible that the opposition party, that the Republican Party, was reasonable,” Sorkin said. “People would watch that and it would be unfamiliar to them as the country that they live in. On the show, while the Republicans were the opposition, they were reasonable, the Republicans that they dealt with.”

Though “aspirational” politics were obviously a key ingredient to what made “The West Wing” so entertaining, he most enjoyed writing a show people would want to watch.

“A big part of the motivation in writing a new script every nine days for this was being able to put something on the table that these actors would like,” he said. “They were the first audience for the show.”

Sorkin on a recent interview for “The West Wing Podcast” touched on the idea of a reunion or reboot, saying he was motivated to do it, but that he still needs to “have an idea.”

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