If only republicans were more like Will McAvoy
I wouldn't hate them so much for being so backwards on every issue.
shareI know they tried really hard to make Will seem like a Republican, but he was one hell of a liberal Republican in my eyes. I couldn't get past that.
shareHow exactly was Will liberal?
Name one instance of his taking a liberal stance on anything.
I'll wait ........
Other than when he explicitly disagrees with the vast majority of the right's decision on-air? Or, even better, when he bashes members of the right? It doesn't help he is portrayed by Jeff Daniels who is, himself, very liberal. I'll just take a couple quotes from the show.
He refers to the Tea Party as the American Taliban.
He even explicitly says that the Republicans have gotten too conservative.
"The problem is now I have to be homophobic. I have to count the number of times people go to church. I have to deny facts and think scientific research is a long con. I have to think poor people are getting a sweet ride. And I have to have such a stunning inferiority complex that I fear education and intellect in the 21st century. But most of all, the biggest new requirement, really the only requirement, is that I have to hate Democrats. And I have to hate Chris Christie for not spitting on the president when he got off Air Force One."
"Who's Allen West on the left? Who's Joe Walsh or Michele Bachmann? A 14-1 ratio of negative stories and your takeaway is is that there's a problem with the storyteller." - that quote in particular is an utter joke.
And that's just from one episode. Sorkin doesn't know how to write a conservative character without bashing the Republican party. Heck, Sorkin had to reveal that Will was a prosecutor when he practiced law to just attempt to sell that Will was conservative. At best Will is portrayed as a moderate. The opening 5 minutes of the very first episode in the entire series contains one long liberal rant, and is some of the 3 most condescending minutes I had ever heard in my life and I myself am a moderate with some liberal leanings.
I really liked the show, but Will was a "Republican" who was portrayed as the liberal hero.
Being Republican doesn't mean that you are a Tea Party Movement supporter, as it's not really part of the Republican platform. It's a movement, not an actual "party".
It also doesn't mean that you always like any Republican candidate, no matter who they are.
Being conservative does not mean that you're automatically a Republican. There are conservative Democrats, and conservative Independents. It's just that the word "conservative" has been used with Republican's so frequently that one would assume any conservative is going to always be a Republican.
He was, just as you said, a moderate Republican.
It's really unfortunate that modern movements and ideas have polluted the the GOP's platform. Don't forget that Lincoln was a Republican. Sadly, the GOP bares little resemblance to what it once was.
PS: I'm not a republican, and I hate politics. But it pays to know a little about the parties that you don't want to belong to.
R-Clayton sez:
"Other than when he explicitly disagrees with the vast majority of the right's decision on-air? Or, even better, when he bashes members of the right?"
The vast majority of the right? No. He disagrees with certain specific members of the right, primarily, even specifically, when they lie. Will is, above al else, a supporter of THE TRUTH.
It just so happens that Republicans lie much, much more than Democrats, They HAVE to. If they told the truth, they'd never get elected.
The best descriptors for the Will McAvoy quotes you've selected are the words "sane", "logical" and "rational".
The key question is whether it's mutually exclusive these days to be sane, logical and rational while also being a Republican.
Yeah...but...
all that's true.
Of course I have no idea of your age, but if you've been paying attention to politics for more than just the past, say, 10 years, you'd know that Sorkin wrote a Reagan Republican and had Jeff Daniels play the guy on TV.
Ronald Reagan would be systematically dismantled by the modern Republican party and would have never made it past about four debates.
That's Will's point. The inmates are running the asylum.
"What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all."
"You don't look lazy."