House of Cartoons

Like many political geeks I've been watching the new series of Netflix's House of Cards with Kevin Spacey doing his best Caligula impression. We're about four episodes in (so just after he meets Lars Mikkelsen as not-Putin) and there's a mixture of things I like and don't like but nothing too different to previous series.

I've written previously about the first series and how I thought the British one worked better because we have a parliamentary system which is better suited for backroom backstabbing than a presidential system. There was also an element of class conflict with the patrician, grouse shooting Urquhart deposing the more working class, John-Major-like PM.

Anyway, the British House of Cards had a tendency to stay realistic and low-key until the final few episodes when people would get murdered. The way I learned to enjoy the Kevin Spacey series is by realising that it made the jump to high-camp early in season 2. Netflix House of Cards is a political drama that focuses on drama at the expense of politics.



Frank's big policy project ("America Works") is utterly insane. His machinations at the UN are completely unrealistic. The idea that the nominee for president is decided exclusively by party big-wigs is hilariously outdated, invisible primary theory notwithstanding. The way that Frank ousted the previous president in season 2 relies on a huge number of  "nobody would really react like that" moments like Democrats in the House of Representatives whipping votes in favour of impeaching their own president!

The show looks realistic in terms of production design and sets but seems like it's written by somebody who stopped following US politics when Bill Clinton left the White House. The facts since Obama took office are that Republicans try to block absolutely anything the Democrats support regardless of the merits. They do this because they will face primary challenges if they vote for anything Obama might sign and thus no carrots the president can offer will overcome that stick.

The moment in season 2 when Frank, as vice president, orders security to throw out senators to prevent a vote is when I realised that this is effectively a cartoon. It's still entertaining and watchable but it's not serious at all about politics.

I just got past the episode where Frank does the obligatory talk-directly-to-God routine that all fictional presidents seem to need to do. At least for Jed Bartlet it made sense for the character at the time.

I've finally realised what this show is. It's the evil mirror universe version of The West Wing. The West Wing was praised for realism and it's certainly more realistic than House of Cards but even then characters are more important than the fantasy politics that the show depicted. If you actually look at Jed Bartlet's achievements then they're pretty miniscule. But at least the characters argued for policies that were realistic and fact-based and, of course, tended to be broadly good people who you could empathise with.

Frank Underwood seems like he's based on Lyndon Johnson but the paradox with Johnson was always that he employed underhanded means to achieve greater goals. Underwood doesn't have those goals, the sum total of his character is employing the underhanded means. He's a dealer and schemer purely for the sake of dealing and scheming.

Again, that doesn't mean that it isn't entertaining drama but real politicians have goals. Frank isn't interested in pursuing those or any of his party's accepted policy goals. Did a version of Obamacare pass in the show's universe? If it didn't then why the hell aren't they trying to pass one! They have a House majority at least! No wonder his colleagues want to ditch him in 2016.

If you want a more realistic political drama then try The Good Wife. It's mainly a legal "case of the week" series about lawyers who somehow don't specialise in any one area but the background politics are very good. The main character's husband is a prominent elected prosecutor who had to resign after an affair and has to win his job back at an election. A paradox I've always liked about it is that Peter (the disgraced husband) is objectively a dodgy guy but is good at his job and pursues good goals. When he runs for Governor, Alicia, his estranged wife and the main character, says she wants him to run because he'd be a good Governor despite the fact that he cheated on her with a prostitute 18 times and she and her kids were forced to listen to the recording on the news for months.

So watch The Good Wife, at least until somebody finally makes a drama series about the real Lyndon Johnson. Corrupt tool of the company that became Halliburton as a congressman, bribed and cheated his way into the Senate with a stolen election, may have had a hand in killing JFK but also fought for and passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid before being destroyed by Vietnam. There's a reason Robert Caro has managed to knock out so many books about him.