‘West Wing’ Creator Aaron Sorkin: ‘Better Voters’ Key to Defeating Trump

Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin suggested that “better voters” are key to defeating President Trump in 2020, telling the audience at Friday’s 20th-anniversary screening of Two Cathedrals at New York’s PaleyFest that we are living in “unnerving times.”

Sorkin told the audience that we are living in “unnerving times, particularly over the past week” and fielded questions from individuals in the audience, one of whom thanked the producer for teaching “civics” on his award-winning political show. Sorkin stressed the importance of the subject, adding that it results in “better voters.” The Moneyball screenwriter — who chalked up Trump’s historical victory as a win for the KKK, white nationalists, sexists, racists, buffoons, and angry white men — took a veiled shot at Trump’s supporters, suggesting that a lack of informed voters in society results in “the tribalism that we have” with Donald Trump.

“We need to make better voters. Otherwise, it’s bound to descend into the tribalism that we have,” he said, according to Variety.

Another audience member told Sorkin that “we need better candidates and need to eliminate the two-party system.” While Sorkin agreed with the general sentiment, he stuck to his initial assertion, arguing that “better voters get us better candidates.”

“I think, in a democracy, how can it not ultimately be the responsibility of the voters?” Sorkin asked. “We’re right to point to all the people we’re pointing at right now in Washington saying, ‘This is so un-American, what’s going on,’ but when are voters going to bear some responsibility?”

“Every four years, there’s this incredible opportunity, because most people don’t have time to do much more than to get through their day and get food on the table and take care of their kids, but every four years, we have the opportunity to hear a great debate and make great progress,” he continued.

“We never hear the great debate. It’s ‘Hillary’s emails!’ It’s wasted every time, and that is so frustrating,” Sorkin added.

Sorkin has remained a vocal critic of the president, once describing Trump as a “really dumb guy with an observable psychiatric disorder.”

Categorizing the president as “dumb” is one of Sorkin’s go-to critiques.  The Molly’s Game director repeated his longheld assessment during an interview with Vanity Fair last month, calling the president “staggeringly, breathtakingly dumb.”