Riveting TV January 10, 2025 Watching Los Angeles burn yesterday was riveting and heartbreaking. Watching President Carter’s funeral was riveting, moving, and inspirational. There was so much more to his life and presidency than most know. (Stuart Eizenstat made a strong case that, while “Jimmy Carter may not deserve to be on Mount Rushmore,” he was definitely “in the foothills.”) Watching Trump’s sentencing, scheduled for 9:30 this morning — which even his own Supreme Court narrowly allowed to go forward — is likely to be riveting as well. > What a contrast the twice-impeached incoming president is to the one to we yesterday bade farewell. > And what a contrast to President Jed Bartlet, just the best damn president ever. “The West Wing” premiered 25 years ago. I re-watched the pilot Sunday ($1.99 on Amazon Prime). President Bartlet doesn’t much appear until the end — but what an ending. Treat yourself. Which got me thinking of other riveting Aaron-Sorkin-written speeches . . . like this one from The Newsroom that many of you will remember, where Jeff Daniels, playing a national news anchor, is asked why America is the greatest country in the world. His answer is a decade old but resonates just as well today. Which got some algorithm (or was it coincidence?) to suggest that I listen to Jeff Daniels’ life story, which has proven to be a wonderful surprise — not least the songs he wrote and performs. It’s an audiobook, not TV, but it’s great. In the 44 years since Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter and began tipping things in favor of the rich . . . which got worse under Bush 43 and worse still under Trump . . . the average American has had a tougher and tougher go of it, even as they watched centi-millionaires become billionaires, billionaires become multi-billionaires, and at least a couple of multi-billionaires become fractional trillionaires. With no sign of let-up. It’s that gross inequality that led to a demagogue’s rise. As Nick Hanauer presciently warned a decade ago, The Pitchforks Are Coming. And now, wearing MAGA hats and storming the Capitol, they’re here. Because the party of FDR, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden is the party that gives us things like Social Security and Medicare, $35 insulin and paid family leave, anti-trust enforcement and airline deregulation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the minimum wage, 70,000 infrastructure projects and — yes — occasional tax hikes on the richest among us . . . . . . our job is to use the next two years to win back the House and Senate, so we can limit the demagogue’s damage (while applauding any good things he gets done) . . . and then, four years from now, return the presidency to the hands of a Republican like Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Dick Nixon (minus the demons), Gerald Ford, or George H.W. Bush . . . or, better still . . . to a Democrat like any of those named above. And we’ve got lots of them.