7 ms·

The Post-Hope Politics of ‘House of Cards’

47 points by tjaerv 13y ago

tjaerv 13y ago
"'The West Wing' arrived in 1999 as a televised fantasy of what we wished our government could be. 'House of Cards' arrived in 2013 as a nightmare of what we fear our government has become. [...] The politicians in 'House of Cards' [are] morally bankrupt and endlessly opportunistic. The show is no cri de coeur, but a cold dissection of the post-Obama (or post-the-Obama-many-hoped-they’d-elected), post-hope political landscape. It's a vision of American government not as we wish it were, but as we secretly fear it is."
- dmk23 13y ago
  It is an excellent illustration of why the powers of government should be limited. Perhaps the most convincing argument for libertarian worldview to come out of the pop-culture. Who would want 'House of Cards' politicians to run their lives?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    But right there is the counterexample. Who wouldn't want Jed Bartlet to have power?
    - msandford 13y ago
      The central issue here is one of limiting risk. It's far easier to destroy prosperity than it is to achieve it, similar to a reputation. It's less important for a good politician to be able to achieve good things than it is for a bad politician not to be able to achieve bad things.
      - pekk 13y ago
        For example, one might decide to make massive political reforms which sound good (and populist) without fully considering all their implications, and thereby destroy prosperity
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - mapt 13y ago
      The merits of the presidential system are actually a plotline in one of the episodes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoio0Z6jLw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoio0Z6jLw
    - protomyth 13y ago
      Well, me. I loved the show (yes, even later seasons[1]) much like I loved "The American President"[2], but would vote against the man in a heartbeat. They do some pretty despicable things while in power[3]. Plus, I notice we end the series in a war. Re-watch the series and look at what a citizen of this land would get from the White House. It is not a great picture of an administration we would want. Of course, no TV administration is going to be a good thing. Drama requires conflict and over 7 seasons a lot of rules get broke in a heroic manner. In real life, we call that abuse of executive privilege. The only thing I can say is President Santos and his education plan is worse for every rural area and budget. 1) Although in later seasons, most of the writers wrote the Republicans as villain of the week instead of honorable adversaries 2) Martin Sheen is amazing in that too 3) not to mention the whole lying about the President's health and never mind the Vice President
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - thenmar 13y ago
    Yep, the world really is that simple - abolish government and things will get better. It's a shame so many people don't realize how easy it is to fix all of their problems.
    - AlexEatsKittens 13y ago
      I can't tell if you're joking.
    - 10feet 13y ago
      To be fair, this guy did talk about politicians power being limited, not abolishing the government. There are clearly good things we should take out of libertarianism, which is why most people join these fringe movements.
    - ihsw 13y ago
      Please stop being facetious, libertarianism != anarchism. Libertarianism recognizes the value of governance, don't get confused, but it asserts that certain individual rights as inalienable.
      - thenmar 13y ago
        okay that's fair. I couldn't help being snarky to such a meaningless and simplistic comment.
      - Aloisius 13y ago
        > Please stop being facetious, libertarianism != anarchism. Please. Anarchists (esp. anarcho-capitalists) have made up a significant portion of libertarians in the US since the Vietnam war. The 1974 Libertarian National Convention intentionally made the Libertarian Party platform ambiguous on the desirability of the state's existence (the Dallas Accord) in order to stave off a full scale war between anarchists and minarchists for goodness sakes. Plenty of libertarians would be happy to abolish government altogether and truly believe that we'd all be better off for it.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        (Non-anarchic) Libertarianism goes beyond asserting that certain individual rights are inalienable. It embraces the idea of limited government, which is really quite an insidious and anti democratic concept when you think about it. What classical libertarians believe is that government must exist for certain limited functions, but that democratic forces shouldn't be able to expand the scope of those functions. In other words, people should be bound by government, but not be able to exercise self determination in shaping that government, but rather must be bound by a government designed by philosopher kings, who divine from sacred scripture which functions of government are legitimate and not. The right to property? Makes the cut. Okay for the government to hire jack boot thugs to enforce property rights. The right to live free of discrimination and economic coercion? Doesn't make the cut. Not a legitimate function of government.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  The Wire precedes House of Cards by about a decade, and the former covered the dark side of politics pretty well (although restricted to just the city of Baltimore).
  - girvo 13y ago
    I've never watched The Wire, but I see so many people mention it... I'm assuming I should probably go and watch it, then?
    - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
      Yes, it's one of the best shows ever made.
  - timthorn 13y ago
    House of Cards was written in 1999. The Netflix version is an interpretation (the original is aboutUK politics), but the book is the basis for it.
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      Right, I forgot about the UK version, I was just referring to the US one.
- ufmace 13y ago
  I really liked that quote, because for me, it touches on what I find the most disturbing about the Obama election and presidency. It seemed, during the original campaign, that there was a critical mass of supporters who were entirely sucked into a vision of Obama as a miraculous figure, able to right all of the perceived wrongs of the Bush administration and heal all of our radial divisions. Stuff that no politician could ever really do, especially one with such a short record and so little experience. But nobody paid attention to that stuff, it was all just the "hope and change". And now they're all mad that this is mostly more of the same. It tends to make me rather cynical about politics here, and likely to ignore it entirely. And what are the odds that I've just started a huge political argument...
  - tunesmith 13y ago
    Usually the antidote to that kind of fatalistic discouragement is the effort to actually try and dive into policy, and understand and analyze the various bits of tradeoffs one has to make to get policy invented and passed. It's possible it would be no less discouraging, but at least it would illustrate that the people actually involved in fighting those fights are people that care very deeply and work very hard. To me, that kind of discouragement - that it's hard - is different than the kind of discouragement that comes from feeling like the whole system is pointless and useless. Another point that may help with that is to read one of the recent descriptions of the career of the recently retired Henry Waxman - someone who was responsible for a ton of change in the long term even if it probably never felt like it in the short term. If that's not the left/right side of change you like, I'd imagine there are other congresspeople on the right side that are equally skilled at quietly affecting slow but effective change over long periods of time.
thanatropism 13y ago
Then again, this is based on Thatcher-era BBC's "The House of Cards".
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  You could argue that part is immaterial. Whether the script was already written, the fact that it was made now and is so popular now, could be all that really matters.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Or maybe it is because Kevin Spacey is a fantastic actor and it has an excellent screenplay? Is the USA a meth addicted society because Breaking Bad has been one of the most celebrated cable tv shows as of late? Trying to pin the success of a well written show on Netflix to America's total hopelessness because Obama hasn't changed the world is a stretch.
    - saryant 13y ago
      I think you've got the right explanation. There have been a few TV shows about the presidency since The West Wing and none of them caught on—they were all terrible shows! The West Wing and House of Cards are popular for the same reason: exceptional writing, production and acting.
      - __david__ 13y ago
        I agree, and that's the reason it kind of rubs me the wrong way when people attribute House of Cards to Netflix's statistics on what people want to watch—which always seems neglect the fact that the show is very well written, very well directed and very well acted. To make an analogy to start-up land: having the great idea is only the first part—actually executing the great idea is actually the more important (and difficult) part.
    - Homunculiheaded 13y ago
      One of the leading villains of Breaking Bad is most definitely the US healthcare system. There is no doubt that in either show stellar acting and writing are what make the show, but part of stellar writing is touching on the anxieties of your audience.
jblock 13y ago
Watching Veep right afterwards is a nice (and just as brilliant in other ways) contrast.

47 points by tjaerv 13y ago

"'The West Wing' arrived in 1999 as a televised fantasy of what we wished our government could be. 'House of Cards' arrived in 2013 as a nightmare of what we fear our government has become. [...] The politicians in 'House of Cards' [are] morally bankrupt and endlessly opportunistic. The show is no cri de coeur, but a cold dissection of the post-Obama (or post-the-Obama-many-hoped-they’d-elected), post-hope political landscape. It's a vision of American government not as we wish it were, but as we secretly fear it is."

dmk23 13y ago
It is an excellent illustration of why the powers of government should be limited. Perhaps the most convincing argument for libertarian worldview to come out of the pop-culture. Who would want 'House of Cards' politicians to run their lives?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  But right there is the counterexample. Who wouldn't want Jed Bartlet to have power?
  - msandford 13y ago
    The central issue here is one of limiting risk. It's far easier to destroy prosperity than it is to achieve it, similar to a reputation. It's less important for a good politician to be able to achieve good things than it is for a bad politician not to be able to achieve bad things.
    - pekk 13y ago
      For example, one might decide to make massive political reforms which sound good (and populist) without fully considering all their implications, and thereby destroy prosperity
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - mapt 13y ago
    The merits of the presidential system are actually a plotline in one of the episodes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoio0Z6jLw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoio0Z6jLw
  - protomyth 13y ago
    Well, me. I loved the show (yes, even later seasons[1]) much like I loved "The American President"[2], but would vote against the man in a heartbeat. They do some pretty despicable things while in power[3]. Plus, I notice we end the series in a war. Re-watch the series and look at what a citizen of this land would get from the White House. It is not a great picture of an administration we would want. Of course, no TV administration is going to be a good thing. Drama requires conflict and over 7 seasons a lot of rules get broke in a heroic manner. In real life, we call that abuse of executive privilege. The only thing I can say is President Santos and his education plan is worse for every rural area and budget. 1) Although in later seasons, most of the writers wrote the Republicans as villain of the week instead of honorable adversaries 2) Martin Sheen is amazing in that too 3) not to mention the whole lying about the President's health and never mind the Vice President
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- thenmar 13y ago
  Yep, the world really is that simple - abolish government and things will get better. It's a shame so many people don't realize how easy it is to fix all of their problems.
  - AlexEatsKittens 13y ago
    I can't tell if you're joking.
  - 10feet 13y ago
    To be fair, this guy did talk about politicians power being limited, not abolishing the government. There are clearly good things we should take out of libertarianism, which is why most people join these fringe movements.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    Please stop being facetious, libertarianism != anarchism. Libertarianism recognizes the value of governance, don't get confused, but it asserts that certain individual rights as inalienable.
    - thenmar 13y ago
      okay that's fair. I couldn't help being snarky to such a meaningless and simplistic comment.
    - Aloisius 13y ago
      > Please stop being facetious, libertarianism != anarchism. Please. Anarchists (esp. anarcho-capitalists) have made up a significant portion of libertarians in the US since the Vietnam war. The 1974 Libertarian National Convention intentionally made the Libertarian Party platform ambiguous on the desirability of the state's existence (the Dallas Accord) in order to stave off a full scale war between anarchists and minarchists for goodness sakes. Plenty of libertarians would be happy to abolish government altogether and truly believe that we'd all be better off for it.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      (Non-anarchic) Libertarianism goes beyond asserting that certain individual rights are inalienable. It embraces the idea of limited government, which is really quite an insidious and anti democratic concept when you think about it. What classical libertarians believe is that government must exist for certain limited functions, but that democratic forces shouldn't be able to expand the scope of those functions. In other words, people should be bound by government, but not be able to exercise self determination in shaping that government, but rather must be bound by a government designed by philosopher kings, who divine from sacred scripture which functions of government are legitimate and not. The right to property? Makes the cut. Okay for the government to hire jack boot thugs to enforce property rights. The right to live free of discrimination and economic coercion? Doesn't make the cut. Not a legitimate function of government.
ahomescu1 13y ago
The Wire precedes House of Cards by about a decade, and the former covered the dark side of politics pretty well (although restricted to just the city of Baltimore).
- girvo 13y ago
  I've never watched The Wire, but I see so many people mention it... I'm assuming I should probably go and watch it, then?
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    Yes, it's one of the best shows ever made.
- timthorn 13y ago
  House of Cards was written in 1999. The Netflix version is an interpretation (the original is aboutUK politics), but the book is the basis for it.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    Right, I forgot about the UK version, I was just referring to the US one.
ufmace 13y ago
I really liked that quote, because for me, it touches on what I find the most disturbing about the Obama election and presidency. It seemed, during the original campaign, that there was a critical mass of supporters who were entirely sucked into a vision of Obama as a miraculous figure, able to right all of the perceived wrongs of the Bush administration and heal all of our radial divisions. Stuff that no politician could ever really do, especially one with such a short record and so little experience. But nobody paid attention to that stuff, it was all just the "hope and change". And now they're all mad that this is mostly more of the same. It tends to make me rather cynical about politics here, and likely to ignore it entirely. And what are the odds that I've just started a huge political argument...
- tunesmith 13y ago
  Usually the antidote to that kind of fatalistic discouragement is the effort to actually try and dive into policy, and understand and analyze the various bits of tradeoffs one has to make to get policy invented and passed. It's possible it would be no less discouraging, but at least it would illustrate that the people actually involved in fighting those fights are people that care very deeply and work very hard. To me, that kind of discouragement - that it's hard - is different than the kind of discouragement that comes from feeling like the whole system is pointless and useless. Another point that may help with that is to read one of the recent descriptions of the career of the recently retired Henry Waxman - someone who was responsible for a ton of change in the long term even if it probably never felt like it in the short term. If that's not the left/right side of change you like, I'd imagine there are other congresspeople on the right side that are equally skilled at quietly affecting slow but effective change over long periods of time.

thanatropism 13y ago

Then again, this is based on Thatcher-era BBC's "The House of Cards".

sliverstorm 13y ago
You could argue that part is immaterial. Whether the script was already written, the fact that it was made now and is so popular now, could be all that really matters.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Or maybe it is because Kevin Spacey is a fantastic actor and it has an excellent screenplay? Is the USA a meth addicted society because Breaking Bad has been one of the most celebrated cable tv shows as of late? Trying to pin the success of a well written show on Netflix to America's total hopelessness because Obama hasn't changed the world is a stretch.
  - saryant 13y ago
    I think you've got the right explanation. There have been a few TV shows about the presidency since The West Wing and none of them caught on—they were all terrible shows! The West Wing and House of Cards are popular for the same reason: exceptional writing, production and acting.
    - __david__ 13y ago
      I agree, and that's the reason it kind of rubs me the wrong way when people attribute House of Cards to Netflix's statistics on what people want to watch—which always seems neglect the fact that the show is very well written, very well directed and very well acted. To make an analogy to start-up land: having the great idea is only the first part—actually executing the great idea is actually the more important (and difficult) part.
  - Homunculiheaded 13y ago
    One of the leading villains of Breaking Bad is most definitely the US healthcare system. There is no doubt that in either show stellar acting and writing are what make the show, but part of stellar writing is touching on the anxieties of your audience.

jblock 13y ago

Watching Veep right afterwards is a nice (and just as brilliant in other ways) contrast.