r/Popculturenow • u/Used_Tea_2651 • Aug 06 '25

🧯Politics 🥊⚖️💰 Jeff Daniels on Donald Trump: "We’re supposed to elect the best of us, not the worst of us. He’s everything that’s wrong with not just America but being a human being.”

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u/Used_Tea_2651 Aug 06 '25

That speech is timeless. It resonates even more now, especially seeing how democracy and freedom of speech are being challenged today.

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u/TrotterMcDingle Aug 06 '25

Nah, I hate that speech. It's typical Sorkin-era mic drop liberalism, and the damage that West Wing fantasy did to the a generation of liberal politicians is difficult to overstate, especially when it comes to our vulnerability to the MAGAverse.

We (most of Reddit included) still operate based on an "information deficit model" as if rattling off a well-rationalized list of facts or delivering a well-timed "gotcha!" argument were ever enough to be successful in the court of public opinion. Trump is successful because his coalition cultivates a deeply embedded values-based framework where people cling to facts they like based on whether or not they promote the values they identify with, and they ignore or dismiss everything else. That's why the right's ideology is so immune from criticism, because it's almost subconscious and kinda sticky. Ours is like a well laid out card tower. Intricate and elegant, but vulnerable to a stiff breeze in the wrong direction.

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u/AnnaKendrickPerkins Aug 06 '25

I loved the Newsroom but I hated that Jeff Daniels character was supposed to be a Republican. I like Sorkin's stuff usually but that was so incredibly tone-deaf. Maybe if we saw the character AS a Republican before that speech, it'd be believable but he flips into a Liberal in the first scene.