Aaron Sorkin’s new Netflix movie, The Trial of the Chicago 7, doesn’t hit the streaming service until next month, but the reviews are in and there’s plenty of hype around the film. The director and playwright certainly keeps an eye on politics, which is why he’s already scripting out the real-life election night that may unfold in November.
Sorkin, who is certainly used to writing what fictional presidents do on The West Wing, revealed he has an ideal script in mind for what happens on election night in November. Though there’s plenty of uncertainty about what will happen with the election result itself, with vote by mail campaigns happening in many states and various issues with the USPS. There’s also Donald Trump’s recent comments about whether he will accept an election result and cede power if he loses to Joe Biden. But Sorkin has an idea, even if it may be as unrealistic as some thing that happened on his TV show about America’s political system.
As Variety shared in an interview with Sorkin, from the Conversations section of the Basque festival’s industry program, Sorkin talked about Chicago 7 and his take on the current political landscape, Sorkin already knows how he’d deal with Trump losing the election if he were writing it.
Sorkin, whose films often deal with the ethics of power, ended the conversation by revealing how he would write election night, 2020. “Trump does what we all assume he will do, which is not concede defeat, claiming the election’s rigged and the Democrats cheated. For the first time, his Republican enablers march up to the White House and say Donald it’s time to go. I would write the ending where everyone does the right thing. I don’t think Trump will do the right thing, except by accident.”
In a year like this, it’s tough to assume that anyone will do the right thing. But Sorkin’s political writings have not always been about what politics are actually like as much as they are an idealistic look at what they should be. If Trump truly isn’t willing to accept an election result that doesn’t go in his favor, things could get a lot more complicated than the script Sorkin has in mind. But sometimes it’s nice to just play pretend for a bit.
[via Variety]