It’s strange to think that 10 years ago today The West Wing, one of the most legendary and highly praised shows in recent memory, aired its final episode. That oddness isn’t because it makes us all feel old or because we’ve slipped into some crazy wormhole where time speeds up, but because The West Wing is possibly the first show to never entirely go away.

The show debuted in September 1999, when there was still a Democratic president in office and the dotcom bubble had yet to burst. It’s crazy to think that the show that defined politics for many people in the 2000s actually straddled the world-changing events of September 11. But even more important to The West Wing’s legacy is how technology changed over that time. Plenty of people jumped on the West Wing bandwagon after it won its first Emmy, surging the audience from about 9 million viewers to its peak of 17 million. That jump was aided in part by DVD sets for TV shows, which were just coming into vogue and definitely aren’t now.

Since the show ended, it’s become a fixture on streaming services and all seven seasons are currently available on Netflix, so viewers can either rewatch CJ Cregg doing The Jackal as many times as they’d like or experience the show for the first time. Catching up on the show became so popular that Joshua Molina, who played Will Bailey on seasons four through seven, started a podcast called West Wing Weekly, where he works through the show’s 156 episodes.

Thanks to Netflix, shows such as The West Wing and Friends are stuck in this strange nostalgia feedback loop, with old fans wanting to revisit a certain time and novices wishing they were in that time even though they missed it the first time around.

This is especially odd for The West Wing, which was embroiled in current events when it aired but also presenting the sort of government that many viewers wish we had when it was airing in the depths of the Bush administration. Jed Bartlet and his acolytes were always more progressive, more intelligent and much more fair than what Democrats at the time were experiencing in real life. Thanks to creator Aaron Sorkin, it was government as liberal fantasy, one where our politicians could hold positions that were untenable in real life.

The world eventually caught up to The West Wing, and the show presaged many of the changes that we would see in just a few years time. Bartlet appointed the supreme court’s first Latino justice in 1999, something that Barack Obama did nine years later when he appointed Sonia Sotomayor. The show’s first season included a storyline about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1999, which took 11 years for Obama to repeal. Osama bin Laden was even a suspect in President Bartlet’s shooting two years before he would claim responsibility for 9/11.

There have been a host of other ongoing political issues that we first heard about on The West Wing: government shutdowns, the rise of filibusters, journalists being kidnapped, and the constant debate over the debt ceiling. However, there is nothing more prescient than the show’s final season where Matthew Santos, the country’s first president of color, assumes office. The character should remind viewers of Obama because he was actually based on the then little-known senator from Illinois.

That’s why The West Wing has really never gone away, because it is as much about the world we live in now as it is about the world as it was then. In fact, it might be even more relevant today than it was 10 years ago.

And still, as our political system continues to degrade – there’s gridlock in Congress over so many issues, and both parties are resorting to filibusters even to get the most basic legislation passed – The West Wing shows us a world where the political system works. It reminds us of a time, not too long ago, when people in political office took their jobs very seriously and wanted to actually govern this country rather than settle scores and appeal to their respective bases. The most popular political dramas of our day are Scandal and House of Cards, ones where back-alley plotting and murderous presidents take center stage rather than the ideals of governing.

We’re about to enter into an election where both candidates have historically low favorable ratings. It’s no wonder why people want to escape with President Bartlet, who never did any wrong and was as noble a creature who ever entered politics. Thanks to technology, we can, but because of a ruptured political process, we really need to.