#president bartlet

[notthatblairwitch]

[conglomerated-flock-of-birds]

I’ve convinced myself to make fan content even tho it’s scary, so here’s the first bit of it!

[fandom-march-madness]

submit your candidates for the best fictional president here

2026 Presidents

Submissions for best fictional president

open til the end of this month, tourney will begin on July 4th. @tournament-announcer

(might eventually do a fictional royalty version of this. as ever, I have more contest ideas than time and energy.)

[166hours]

Watching the West Wing for the first time and feeling the profound grief that is realizing we have come so far from having Presidents who are sane and likable

[g-luztrash]

"Never Doubt That A Small Group Of Thoughtful Individuals Can Change The World." - President Bartlet

Now available on my redbubble

[morganaconda]

[deelightful54]

Donna Moss is pathetic sometimes (and that's okay).

I'm a big fan of The West Wing Weekly (I've listened through it all at least twice + lots of individual episode re-listens) and one thing they discuss from time to time is some of the offensive ways in which Donna is sometimes written. And yes, there was at times unconscious sexism in the way she was written. There was also a lot of intentionally written unconscious sexism in the men around her (which was good writing due to the realism). While many people enjoy the Josh/Donna dynamic, I rarely hear people, even other women, consider Donna a favorite character on TWW.

Donna's patheticness is most often displayed in her search for love - getting back together with her crappy ex pre-cannon, lamenting her dating life to Ainsley while Ainsley is trying to do actual work, risking her career to cover for her Navy boyfriend's press gaffe, carrying a torch for Josh for so long... But isn't all of this devastatingly realistic? First off, wanting a relationship is not a bad thing, and almost everyone has to schlep through some bad dates to get there. And she has made unwise sacrifices for men who didn't care for her. But this doesn't make her irredeemable. It makes her human. She still has great strengths. She is great at her job, and Josh needs her. She is often willing to stand up to Josh (her telling off Toby and Josh for devaluing all of the people they'd met in 20 Hours in America), and even the president (discussing presidential pardons for those with drug charges) - a move that is much riskier for her than the senior staff.

Every woman either has, or knows a woman who has, lessened herself in an attempt at obtaining or maintaining a romantic relationship. It's a part of Donna's larger story arc that she comes to embrace her worth in her work and personal lives and demands to be treated accordingly. (Though I do concede that part of her arc should have started a lot sooner.)

Honestly, every character on this show has moments of patheticness (very human!), but it's Donna people seem to ridicule for it. My girl deserves some appreciation.

[secularsasquatch]