Diana and I recently finished watching The West Wing on Netflix. Well, I watched the Sorkin seasons and the last one, but she watched the entire series. I guess the middle part that I missed wasn't that great, but I did enjoy the parts that I saw. I mean, I love people walking and handing off papers while talking fast. While it's certainly a work of fiction, obviously, I suspect much of the context in terms of the decision making that the president has to make is pretty for real. It makes you loathe the idea of the people currently running taking the office, but also makes you wonder who would want the job at all.
If you're the president, people will live and die by your decisions. That's a really heavy burden (again, one that some are far too cavalier about). You have the constant stress of having to do what you believe is the right thing, and you should be considering how that rolls with what the American people expect of you. The pressure and stress have to be massive. I'm sure you've seen the before and after photos of the various presidents in our lifetime. It ages you.
You have to immediately question why anyone would want this job. That amount of responsibility and power associated with the position is enormous. That's actually one of the things that I loved about that TV show, in that the guy they got to run for president in the last few seasons was the "real deal." His motivation was one of public service. Of course, that kind of ideal is probably total fantasy in real life.
What saddens me is that the office itself has become such a joke as of late. I don't mean that in relation to the current or any past president, but in politics and news coverage and even from the standpoint of regular people on Facebook, no one respects the office itself anymore. Symbolically, it should be one of the greatest symbols of our democracy. Instead it is being used as the goal of agendas to incite fear and hate. It's a sad thing to see. I know we can be better than that.
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