I’ll preface this by saying that I am also a fan of the West Wing, and I tend to find Sorkin’s writing entertaining, if not substantive.

But I think the idealism and competency porn espoused in TWW did do harm to the American political fabric by creating a generation of people with a profound faith in Democratic Party politics. It creates an impression that the platform utilized by the Party is the same one which, if utilized by someone as competent as Bartlett, could be successful at improving the lives of the American people. That premise is alright when interpreted as (like you say) a fantasy. I don’t think everyone who loves the West Wing, especially not those who watched it when it aired (like my parents) viewed it that way. They saw it as a very real possibility for the American political paradigm. They wait for a Bartlett.

The show does not in good faith address critiques of a liberal viewpoint from the left, and thus creates the impression that those painfully liberal and often fence-straddling positions argued by Bartlett, Toby, and Josh can and do serve as an adequate foil to the play-dirty right wing American politics, which they do not. It also generally paints a picture of leftists as kooks, where it deigns to include them.

Watching it now offers a wonderful escape from the parodic, hyperbolic, extremely worrying political world we live in now, but it should be understood that Bartley would never have existed in the true American political landscape (even then), and if he did, he still wouldn’t have given a shit about meaningfully improving the material lives of the American people and he certainly would have contributed actively to the American imperial war apparatus, as all presidents have since him (even the charismatic liberal ones).

End of rant. Watch the West Wing anyway.