The point of The West Wing is to make you think, and it functions as a pretty solid primer on the way that the US Presidency and legislatures are actually supposed to function. You'll meet Conservatives who hate it because they think it is liberal propaganda, but IMO The West Wing actually was remarkably fair to traditional Conservatism. The "hero" President is a Liberal, for sure, but he is always shown to be willing to hear out Conservative points of view and usually tries his best to reach workable compromises. What Sorkin (the screenwriter and original showrunner) didn't like, and it definitely shows, was what we now identify as Christian Nationalism. The truth is, the most "kooky" of the Conservatives you'll see on The West Wing are definitely a long way from Far Right by today's standards.
What The West Wing showed in startling (and sometimes poetic) detail, and what Americans need to see right now, are Liberal and Conservative politicians making compromises on both sides and making a true good-faith effort to actually govern. President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) is meant to be a brilliant intellectual, but sometimes is too full of himself to see the best course forward, and his staff are there to keep us engaged in the whole political universe that swirls around a President and (normally) influences him day to day. There is a bit of bang-bang action here and there, but it is always brief, usually happens off-camera (though you'll often see characters watching it on TV news) and only exists as a way to set up a character story about how one or more of the characters reacts to the consequences of it.
PS: The closest current US show to this style is The Diplomat (starring Kerry Russell and Rufus Sewell.) Recently 2 new actors were added to the cast of that show who West Wing fans will definitely recognize: Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford. The Diplomat is decent TV, but IMO it puts too much emphasis on the title character's love life, which, like the rest of her, is messy (if you've never watched the show, it's a recurring theme; she is hopeless at looking "put together" without help, and she's always ticking people off, too.) What I find most disappointing on The Diplomat is the dialogue; "Sorkinesque" it is not. (I just re-watched A Few Good Men recently; over 3 decades on, the courtroom scenes with Jack Nicholson are still some of the best film dialogue ever written; the screen just crackles with the sharpness of it.)
