For many years, I was glued to the West Wing television series. Its iconic opening music and setting captured the awe and prestige of its subject matter, the office of the President of the United States.
Martin Sheen excelled in his portrayal of Jed Bartlet, a wise and extremely knowledgeable leader who inspired his legion of advisers and who, by his conduct and nature, commanded and received respect from all around him, friend or foe.
As a young trainee politics teacher, I can recall using the series to explain aspects of American politics to A-level students and eagerly discussing episodes with family, friends and colleagues.
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I no longer feel the same way about the award-winning series produced by Aaron Sorkin, one of Hollywood’s most renowned writers and producers. Whilst it still provides many teachable moments, the core narrative is deeply misleading and propagates the erroneous belief that America is an unparalleled good guy on the global stage.
In my lifetime alone, the United States has initiated conflicts that have led to hundreds of thousands of people being killed in all parts of the world. On every occasion, the decision to initiate or engage in military conflict was taken on the exclusive basis that it served the best strategic interests of the United States.
Democracies were overthrown, despotic leaders and regimes propped up and the fate of the lives of millions of ordinary people in distant lands determined on the basis of what benefits could be accrued by those with sufficient wealth and power to influence politicians, their appointees and advisers in the capital of the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
America is not in a good place. Being poor in the land of the free and home of the brave is to lead a perilous existence unrecognisable to those of us living in western European societies where the value of the welfare state, though under attack, is still sufficiently appreciated across the political spectrum.
Donald Trump is a deeply misogynistic, racist, self-absorbed megalomaniac who should not be anywhere near elected office. His ascent points to the triumph of ignorance, self-interest and an absence of values in a fractured and fragmented society where anger is always on the boil.
Yet it has been on the watch of the supposed good guys of American politics, the Democrats, that the world has looked on in horror as America sponsored a barbaric genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of one of America’s closest allies, Israel, using its global power and reach to bully and silence those raising their voices against the injustice.
Read more: When will enough be enough for Israel and its wars in Gaza and Lebanon? - The Irish News view
Just last week, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, launched a vicious attack on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories.
She accused Albanese of being anti-Semitic for having the temerity to speak out against the genocide, provoking a fierce and entirely appropriate response by The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention who accused the US diplomat of launching the attack to “hide your criminal complicity in an ongoing genocide”.
American voices raised in protest at their government’s active support for Israel’s war in Palestine and Lebanon have been met with a sustained and ferocious campaign by the powerful pro-Israel lobby. University students and lecturers have been targeted, as well as journalists and business people.
Last October, the producer of the West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, let it be known that he had sacked his agent and left the agency for a rival firm after she had shared an Instagram post critical of Israel’s attacks on Palestine, including in part a statement that “you’re currently learning who supports genocide”. Indeed.
Foreign governments tread carefully when seeking to distance themselves from America’s overseas endeavours for fear of provoking a backlash for standing by victims and for truth and justice.
Whoever is elected to serve as America’s president after the votes are counted tomorrow night, there is little reason to believe that the new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC will change course.
Kamala Harris on paper looks to be the lesser evil, but that will matter little to the families of the tens of thousands of dead Palestinians in Gaza and 180 medics and more than 100 children killed in Lebanon by Israel over the past five weeks.
Remember them when the trumpets next sound for Hail to the Chief.
