They Can't Get Enough of 'The West Wing' Right Now. [View all]

'President Bartlet doesn’t live in the White House, even on TV, anymore. But his fans find solace in streaming an old favorite.

Election night, 2017. Alarmed and unnerved by the state of politics in America, Josh Reinitz, a lawyer and Democrat in Fair Lawn, N.J., is running for borough council. But it is a stressful time.

As his campaign waits for the results at a local senior center, Mr. Reinitz slips away to a dark room to the side and powers up his iPhone. For the next 45 minutes, he sits by himself watching television — “Two Cathedrals,” to be specific, his favorite “West Wing” episode.

“Fortunately,” Mr. Reinitz recalled recently, “I was able to immerse myself in the episode to the point that I didn’t hear another sound until the room erupted in cheers as our victory was assured.”

“The West Wing,” a workplace drama set in the White House and dedicated to the notion that Washington is run by good people who are doing their best, was broadcast on NBC for seven seasons, from 1999 to 2006. Though its ratings declined over the years, at its peak it regularly drew more than 17 million viewers.

It is now streaming on Netflix. And to its many liberal and independent-leaning fans, in particular, it has become something more than just a nostalgic drama from a time when men’s suits with pleated pants is fashionable and Twitter does not yet exist. For many in the Trump era, the show is an idealistic alternative reality, an escape from the vitriol and ill-will that they see coursing like poison through contemporary politics. . .

“The bulk of the mail we’d get would be from people who identified themselves as Republicans or said, ‘I don’t agree with the politics’ but nonetheless liked the way they felt when they watched the show,” Aaron Sorkin, who created the show and wrote nearly all of the episodes in the first four seasons, said in an email. “That continues today.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/politics/west-wing-politics.html?