Wisconsin Democrats once again turn to Hollywood for election year victories

Democratic National Convention via AP

The Wisconsin Democratic Party is leaning heavily on a playbook put into action in the 2020 election cycle. In 2020, the motivation was their hatred for Donald Trump. In 2022, the mantra is that Democrats will flourish and thrive if “MAGA Republicans” are beaten. I’m assuming that Julia Louis-Dreyfus means beat the Republicans at the ballot box, not literally beating them, but you never know in today’s hyper-divisive political atmosphere.

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The casts of The West Wing and Veep are reuniting to do some virtual fundraising for Democrats in Wisconsin. The West Wing star Allison Janney and the star of Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, announced a joint reunion that will be live-streamed on Sunday, October 9. The virtual fundraiser will feature stars from both shows and feature “games, jokes, performances, and other entertainment,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Set to live-stream on Sunday, October 9, at 8 p.m. ET, the event will feature games, jokes, performances, and other entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Viewers can donate any dollar amount to receive a link to watch and participate in the event.

In addition to Janney and Louis-Dreyfus, the special crossover will also see appearances from Bradley Whitford, Martin Sheen, Tony Hale, Gary Cole, Richard Schiff, Matt Walsh, Anna Chlumsky, Mary McCormack, Timothy Simons, Janel Maloney, and Melissa Fitzgerald.

“We have joined forces with The West Wing because winning Wisconsin this November is crucial to saving American democracy,” Louis-Dreyfus told The Hollywood Reporter. “And also because when MAGA Republicans are beaten and democracy thrives and flourishes, Veep seems much funnier and less sad.”

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a longtime progressive activist. I am old enough to remember when she did television interviews with another far-left Hollywood activist, Rob Reiner, to get out the vote during the GW Bush administration, against his re-election. Reiner had to feed her lines to say about how bad Republicans are, especially in terms of the Supreme Court. Good times, good times.

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In 2020, the cast of The Princess Bride reunited to fundraise for Wisconsin Democrats. At the time, it was reported that Cary Elwes, who played Westley in the film, is a childhood friend of a staffer of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. As I wrote at the time, the Democrat Party in Wisconsin was inspired by the story of The West Wing’s cast reunion and support of the Black Lives Matter movement. I wonder if the cast members consider themselves Marxists as the founders of BLM do.

In April 2020, the entire “Parks and Recreation” cast got together virtually and performed a scripted special that raised money for COVID-19 relief. The reunion raised more than $2.8 million and drew over 3.6 million viewers. So, when all else fails, the left turn to Hollywood to get out their message.

The cast of Happy Days was reunited (except for one Trump-supporting holdout) in 2020, too, for a virtual Democrat fundraiser in Wisconsin.

Those fundraisers for the Wisconsin Democratic Party all centered around opposition of the bad Orange Man. Trump isn’t on the ballot in November, though, so Democrats in Hollywood are just uttering DNC talking points and what they hear coming from the White House. They memorize lines written by someone else for a living, you know. Louis-Dreyfus should be asked about what she thinks “MAGA Republican” means.

Louis-Dreyfus played fictional United States Vice President Selina Meyer in the Emmy-winning HBO comedy. The series revolved around Meyer and her team attempting to make their mark and leave a legacy but often coming up against petty day-to-day political games.

Janney, meanwhile, played White House press secretary C.J. Cregg in all seven seasons of The West Wing. The series centered on the fictitious Democratic administration of President Josiah Bartlet (Sheen) and followed the daily work of the Executive Branch of the federal government.

“The Bartlet administration represented everything that politics should be. The Meyer administration represented everything that it shouldn’t,” stated Whitford, who portrayed White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on The West Wing. “The West Wing also had, especially among supporting characters, a far more physically attractive cast. Despite these differences, we are teaming up to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in my home state of Wisconsin.”

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Both The West Wing and Veep were pretty good entertainment. There was always an obnoxious superiority complex at play for the characters in The West Wing. It was totally believable that the occupants in the White House would think of themselves as the smartest people on the planet. Veep, on the other hand, was the opposite as it portrayed members of a vice-president’s staff as completely incompetent and always mucking things up.

For his part, Whitford nodded to both the plot of his show The West Wing with the Bartlet administration (headed by Sheen’s Josiah “Jed” Bartlet) and Veep’s Meyer administration (headed by Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer).

“The Bartlet administration represented everything that politics should be. The Meyer administration represented everything that it shouldn’t,” Whitford noted. “The West Wing also had, especially among supporting characters, a far more physically attractive cast. Despite these differences, we are teaming up to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in my home state of Wisconsin. Join us. We’re gonna have a lot of fun, and we’re gonna do everything we can to save democracy while we’re at it.”

I’m already sick of hearing about how Democrats are going to “save democracy” and I’m sure you are, too. That is just as arrogant as the character Whitford played. Wisconsin has been a swing state in recent elections. We’ll see which way it swings in November.

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