As another exhausting year in American politics draws to a close, all seven seasons of The West Wing , Aaron Sorkin ’s quixotic White House drama about liberal, populist president Jed Bartlet (played by fellow progressive Martin Sheen ) and his cohort of idealistic senior staffers are now available on Netflix. With its rousing speeches and soaring theme song, the series painted such an aspirational picture of DC politics that its original 1999–2006 run spawned a generation of Obama-era policy nerds who, back in 2012, Vanity Fair anointed “ West Wing babies .”

Ezra Klein , then 27, now a renowned New York Times columnist and podcast host, was among those moved toward the halls of government by the series. “There’s a cultural meme or cultural suggestion that Washington

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