The writers of Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as President Selina Meyer, have been careful not to indicate which party Meyer is in. Type “Is Selina Meyer a” into Google and it’ll guess you’re about to ask whether she’s a Democrat or a Republican.
There have been plenty of clues that we can interpret one way or the other, but the character of Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) has become, in my opinion, the clearest indication that Meyer is a Republican.
We know for sure that Meyer and Ryan are in the same party. The idea that Meyer could be of either party is a form of lazy both-sideism. It does take a certain ruthlessness, and at least a little bit of dishonesty, to be successful in politics these days.
But the events of the past few years have clearly demonstrated that Republicans have no morals at all. What few halfway decent Republicans there are in office are close to retiring, dying or changing parties.
I suppose it needs to be said clearly that Veep is fiction. However, most of the history of the United States is the same on the show as in real life, diverging at some point after President Jimmy Carter (D, 1977 — 1981).
At the same time, I also have to give a spoiler warning. Maybe you have not watched all of Season 6 yet, maybe you have seen the previous seasons on DVD.
That’s understandable if you don’t want to pay a lot of money for premium cable just to watch two or three shows on HBO. Me personally, I’m not too interested in the one with the dragons, but I would like to watch Silicon Valley and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
So, if you don’t have HBO but intend to watch Veep Seasons 6 and 7 when you are able to, and you think knowing a few details about what happens in Season 6 will spoil your enjoyment, then please stop reading, but please do come back afterwards.
Jonah Ryan, perennially tall and perennially belittled, started out as inconsequential comic relief. As a West Wing minion who frequently went over to Vice President Meyer’s office, he was a character in the sitcom mold of the annoying visitor.
But like Steve Urkel (Jaleel White) on Family Matters, Ryan proved to be a viewer favorite. The writers fleshed out the Ryan character and gave him an important story arc that continues to play out in Season 7.
Ryan gets tapped to become the junior congressman from New Hampshire in part because he will do whatever President Meyer wants him to do, and in part because no one else wants to run against the widow of the congressman who just vacated the seat by dying.
And in Season 6, the now former President Meyer, obsessed with getting donations for her presidential library, is still using Ryan, this time to get private prison profiteer Sherman Tanz (Jonathan Hadary) to donate to the Meyer Library effort.
When Ryan’s expletive-laden tirade against Daylight Saving Time (DST) goes viral, Tanz realizes Ryan is totally malleable. Tanz has his lobbyists write up legislation to end DST, and also to make criminal sentences less lenient, so as to, of course, increase private prison occupancy.
Currently, in real life, New Hampshire’s delegation to Congress is all Democrats, which would suggest that Ryan is a Democrat. Also, a red/blue state map shown in one episode also suggests that Meyer is a Democrat.
Plus Meyer sometimes seems to take positions that are more aligned with Democrats than Republicans, and to make comments that suggest she’s a Democrat.
But to draw that conclusion is to treat this show like Star Trek. And even in Star Trek we would do well to remember that sometimes characters exaggerate, joke and even flat out lie. In Star Trek, like in Veep, it can also happen that a character is misinformed.
Instead of trying to ascertain a character’s party affiliation through a chain of logical deductions, we should ask: in which party does Ryan make more sense? Given his stupidity and spinelessness, Ryan is clearly a Republican.
The Democratic Party has been known to have stupid, spineless men. But not in as much abundance as in the Republican Party. When Rep. Ryan shuts down the government over DST, he does so with the help of other dumb congressmen, which his aide Ben (Kevin Dunn) characterizes as “the short bus” of Congress.
Although Meyer is vastly more intelligent and graceful than Ryan, she is just as willing to sacrifice almost anything in the service of ambition as Ryan. In the Season 6 finale that meant dumping her Muslim boyfriend just because it would not poll well in her run to return to the White House.
At least Meyer wants people to think she’s a good president, whereas Ryan is afflicted with a tragic lack of self-awareness. Even so, if we had Ryan as president instead of Trump, that would still be a huge improvement.
Season 7 is already underway.
A new episode aired last night. Or should I say “cabled”? It will be rerun tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. EDT on HBO, and at various times later this week on HBO2.
Selina faces increased scrutiny heading into Super Tuesday, so she visits Mike to deflect attention from Andrew's legal troubles; Jonah and Amy ramp up their anti-Selina campaign rhetoric; Dan attempts to exploit Richard.
I probably won’t get to watch until after the season comes out on DVD. But don’t worry about giving me spoilers, please feel free to discuss this show as if I’ve seen every episode so far this season.