West Wing Nostalgia Just Won’t Quit

The fictional president Josiah Bartlet dropped into a Democratic canvassing headquarters in a Madison, Wisconsin, strip mall last Sunday morning. He was there on behalf of Kamala Harris, addressing a room full of jittery volunteers stranded in a real-life political campaign.

Bartlet—or rather, Martin Sheen, the actor who played him on the beloved TV show The West Wing—was an emissary from a bygone era of better political angels that may or may not have ever existed off-screen. The show aired from 1999 to 2006 but has continued, on streaming platforms, to inspire fresh generations of operatives with its portrayal of a noble Democratic White House untainted by House of Cards, Veep, and the Trump-era darkness that would follow.

“While acting is what I do for a living,” Sheen told the crowd, “activism is what I do to stay alive.” He looked out at his audience, about 100 people set to embark on a day of canvassing and door-knocking. His voice acquired a note of paternal warmth: “I see all the faces in here.” All of this work is “worth it,” he assured everyone. “I see that the light is on.”

Personally, I saw anxiety. Fear and exhaustion, too. I might have been projecting, but it seemed palpable in this den of last-minute activity—the strain and burden of another jump-ball election, with stakes entirely too high and margins entirely too thin and nerves entirely too frayed.

With two weeks left in this writer’s-room-nightmare of a campaign, and Wisconsin still up for grabs, all the usual platitudes felt far too plausible: Everyone was talking about Democracy being at stake and the threat of fascism on the other side and America facing an existential moment and all of that. None of it felt like the usual overwrought melodrama.

Who could blame volunteers for wanting a little escapism and some doughnuts on a Sunday morning? Sheen brought along three of his West Wing co-stars: Bradley Whitford (who played deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman), Richard Schiff (communications director Toby Ziegler), and Mary McCormack (deputy national security adviser Kate Harper). They were upbeat but quick with their reality checks. “This ain’t no stinkin’ television show,” Whitford said. “The stakes are real.”

Ever since The West Wing ceased production, the cast has enjoyed its own next act as a kind of progressive wish-cast ensemble. First Lady Jill Biden hosted several of the actors and creators at a White House celebration of the show’s 25th anniversary last month. They have toured some of the well-trodden battlegrounds of the campaign trail. I’ve encountered them periodically through the years, popping up at the various headquarters, candidate events, and hotel lobbies of Iowa; New Hampshire; Washington, D.C.; and assorted other political petting zoos.

“We’re not just a bunch of people from television paying lip service here,” Whitford said on Sunday. “What you are doing is so important.” The cast likes to think The West Wing is also so important, or at least carries with it some level of relevance today, in these very different political times.

After the canvassing headquarters, the West Wing troupe headed to a packed theater across town. “We’re going to win!” Whitford declared onstage. He sounded like he really believed it. Then again, he is an actor.

Schiff echoed his co-star’s message, but lacked the same volume—and conviction. “I’m going to say it softer than Brad, but we’re going to win,” he said. The crowd cheered. Hope can be galvanizing, even if laundered through Hollywood characters who vacated their fictional offices nearly two decades ago.

Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. The West Wing was a TV show—a very good one, depicting a world very much still yearned for, even if gathering dust. You can question the utility of these celebrity drop-bys. But at the same time, why not? What’s the harm of nostalgia to keep the throngs awake in these final, weary days?

I admit that I came away less skeptical than I went in. “I know I’m preaching to the choir,” Whitford told the Democratic volunteers. “But I just want to make you sing!” And everyone sang: “The Star Spangled Banner” to kick off the morning and “America the Beautiful” as the cast left the stage.

Sheen, who is now 84, looks tremendously well preserved—but thankfully has no interest in serving in any role beyond the pretend president emeritus that he still plays in the eyes of his adoring public. He told me that someone will come up to him at least once a day, often more, and address him as “Mr. President.” He had just boarded a plane at LAX the day before, and a fellow passenger greeted him: “Good morning, Mr. President, is Air Force One in the shop?” He happily plays along—being gracious is not hard work. Changing minds and coaxing votes and winning elections is hard work.

On Sunday, Sheen emphasized that the struggle is its own reward. He likes to tell an old Irish story about a man who dies and arrives at the gates of heaven. “Saint Peter says, ‘Show me your scars,’” Sheen said. But the man has no scars to show, and Saint Peter tells him what a pity that is. “Was there nothing worth fighting for?” Saint Peter asks. At this point in the story, Sheen’s voice gained several octaves, and he launched into the crescendo of his speech: “We are rightly called to find something in our lives worth fighting for. Something deeply personal and uncompromising.” Nothing that has value in life, he argued, comes easy.

“You’re my president!” a woman standing next to me shouted. Within seconds of his pep talk ending, Sheen was swarmed. Volunteers posed for pictures and clutched Harris-Walz signs for him to autograph.

A young woman who walked up to Sheen/Bartlett seemed quite emotional. It can be a momentous experience, meeting an actual fake president. “It was all because of your show that I got into politics,” the young woman, Amanda Boss, told him. Boss said she’d started watching West Wing at the age of 5. She loved how fast everyone talked and walked and how important everything seemed to be, at all times. She told me she had never met a president before. I was compelled to remind her that Saint Bartlet was a fictional character.

“Yes,” she said. “But he was real in my head.”