Okay, I've decided to do no one a favor and actually try to answer this.
Because yes, my joke answer was 'cocaine' and that is true. I've also heard 'it's just excellent craftsmanship' as an answer before, and that is also true.
But the thing is, other shows have been written on cocaine, and other shows have been technically excellent. There are other phenomenal, technically masterful, lightning-in-a-bottle, as close as human-made media can come to perfection shows, and to my experience they still don't hit quite like The West Wing.
Which leaves us with op's question: How does The West Wing make you feel shrimp emotions?
I have a theory that a lot of forces coincided to make this happen. One significant category was technical mastery. Writing, acting, directing, editing, etc. etc. all firing on all cylinders. The quality of the show, I think, speaks for itself.
Another key force is the hope behind it all. The West Wing is fundamentally hopeful. About America, about democracy, about the ability of competent, level-headed people to make change, and it is achingly sincere in this hope. The show wears this hope on its sleeve in every episode and it never punishes its characters for believing things can change. Yes it absolutely challenges the characters in massive ways--as a good drama should--but the narrative itself never turns around and says "you were an idiot for believing in this."
That means it doesn't punish the audience for buying into this hope either. The show asks you to be join them on a mission that actually matters and rewards you for it. Note that his would not work if it wasn't for the general technical excellence. It would be so easy for a show like this to come off as cloying and saccharine. If Aaron Sorkin wasn't actually a presidential-caliber political speechwriter, if Martin Sheen couldn't deliver those speeches with the sincerity and gravitas to make you believe them, et al, the show would feel, honestly, a bit silly.
These are not new observations. But if there is a secret ingredient to The West Wing, my personal theory is that it's the story world the show is set in. The Newsroom provides us a great illustration of this. Like The West Wing, it is:
about a noble group of do-gooders on a mission to save the world with liberal intellectualism
set in a high-powered, fast-passed sphere with significant influence on the public and current events (a major broadcast news network)
fundamentally believes in America, democracy, and our ability to make things better
And yet The Newsroom also does not hit like The West Wing. Don't get me wrong, I love The Newsroom. It is tww's chaotic, soapy little cousin and it's so much fun. But it also serves to illustrate that even with the same technical and ideological elements as tww, something is still missing. Or rather, tww contains something unique.
The world that The West Wing is set in delivers three critical elements to the story: impact, rules, and 'the pressure cooker.'
Due to being set around an American presidency, The West Wing feels like it matters in a way that other shows don't. Other shows can build amazing stakes within their internal worlds, but when we turn the tv off we know, for example, that Game of Thrones is not actually our problem. tww, while obviously fictional, feels a step closer to reality that most other shows. It feels like it matters. Like watching it might actually make a difference.
This, again, only works so well because the show is so well done. Also, there have been other shows and movies about fictional presidencies and that also do not hit like tww.
At its core, The West Wing is a procedural. It may not be a straightforward as a more traditional crime, legal, or medical procedural drama (get case → find clues → solve case) but I would argue that the way it sets up its problems is made of similar elements.
Generally when we talk about worldbuilding in fiction we're talking stories more 'other' to our daily lives--sci fi and fantasy especially. Magic systems and all that. But I think tww essentially leverages the real American political system in a way that makes it feel, for lack of a better term, like a magic system. It teaches the audience the rules for what the gang needs to do to pass a bill, how a filibuster works, but does so in a way that feels incredibly lived in, only giving the audience the minimum amount of explanation needed to follow the story.
And that often makes a story with a complex set of rules feel real--like you're just getting dropped into someone's real, complex life.
But because of the topic at hand those rules are things you--as an American view especially--know about, have heard about, or can learn about. The world of the show feels immersive because it is. You can see the bodies, structures, and procedures its talking about at work in your real life.
And you can use that knowledge to predict how the characters will react within the show.
I'll be an asshole and throw out the word verisimilitude here.
But possibly my favorite element of The West Wing's worldbuilding is something I've been calling 'the pressure cooker.'
Because of the nature of the characters' high-ranking, public-facing positions, and given the 'realism' the show is going for, there is always a tonal 'lid' on The West Wing that there isn't on most other shows. These characters cannot freak out/break down/go off the way characters in other shows might under similar circumstances. It's like...imperative to the safety of the country/world that they at least appear to be in control.
And there are serious consequences when they slip up. CJ almost loses her job when she lets her guard down and says something she shouldn't have. Josh has to have a secret therapy meeting and if it gets out that he is struggling with ptsd he'll lose his job to. And of course there's Bartlet's MS.
And on the romantic side of things, there's all the ways it is nearly impossible for any of these people to live normal lives or pursue stable relationship, even with other people in the same weird little world, until they are out of the pressure cooker.
I'm not sure how well I'm explaining this, but there is a level of decorum and professionalism that is demanded of these character at all times that compounds everything else going on in the show. Again, this is stacking on everything that's come before it, so if the show wasn't excellently crafted and hopeful and realistic this probably wouldn't matter, but on top of everything else that makes The West Wing special, this just might be the last quarter turn of the screw that locks things into place.
And it's compound by the fact that this was a network show in the 90s. They couldn't even say 'fuck'! Do you know how much pressure would vent from this show if they could just shout 'fuck!" every once in a while? I want that release for them! But I don't get it, because the tone of the show compounds with the meta-politics of broadcast television to create this tightly wound, high pressure world that is forced to vent its frustrations and its pain in the most restrained ways possible and that creates something unique, I think.
When you take this lid off the simmering pot of drama soup, you get something more like The Newsroom. Which, again, I love, but it's at a full, stupid, chaotic boil where The West Wing is only ever allowed to reach a very strategically crafted simmer. No matter how badly it wants to boil over, the rules its set for itself--those internal to the show, those its adapting from real offices and systems, and those its forced to abide by because of the nature of its distribution--prevent that.
Anyway, that's my working theory.
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