No one has ever accused the cast of ABC’s The View of being truly reflective or the pinnacle of civility on daytime TV. Yet on Monday’s show, in the wake of America remembering the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the cast was perplexed by the apparent loss of civility and unity in the country. One co-host even suggested that until America had a racial reckoning for slavery, we would NEVER be able to replicate that kind of unity.
Following a soundbite of President Biden’s 9/11 address, co-host Whoopi Goldberg wondered: “What's happened? What's been lost with the loss of civility?” “It's one of those things where it didn't matter what side of the aisle you were on, people united. Much like we did during the pandemic, in the early days of the pandemic, where people just were like, let me take care of my neighbor,” she fondly recalled.
Goldberg may be confused about “what’s happened,” but it wasn’t like The View has really tried to preserve civil discourse. A week ago, her audio needed to be cut because she was cursing out Republicans for opposing student loan bailouts. And earlier this year, co-host Sunny Hostin lashed out at black and Latino Republicans by calling them an “oxymoron.”
Of course, Hostin had something to say in this instance too. She opined about how America was able to rally because 9/11 was carried out by foreign terrorists. But now that the threat was supposedly “white supremacy and domestic terrorism,” the country was refusing to mobilize.
According to her, America would never experience a unifying moment unless there was a racial reckoning to address slavery:
How do you come together when it's homegrown terror? And we have never addressed why there is that issue that remains in this country 400 years later, and until we get to that until we have accountability, we are not, I don't think ever going to be able to come close to what we saw in terms of unity.
The premise itself makes no sense because Hostin’s warped worldview says America has never addressed slavery and yet we had the unifying moment after 9/11 anyway.
And Hostin’s apparent definition of “accountability” is to give her accountant something to do. Late last week, she demanded that the United States pay her reparations. Hostin is a multi-millionaire who brags about taking family vacations to Martha's Vineyard and Sag Harbor, and her husband is a renowned orthopedic surgeon in New York City.
For another instance of The View flushing civility down the toilet, we just needed to wait a few minutes until later in the show when so-called “Republican” co-host Ana Navarro rehashed the long-debunked accusations of sexual misconduct against U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, and called the wife of the former a “wack job.”
It’s a real unsolved mystery where the civility went. If only Robert Stack was still alive.
This nonsense from The View was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Prevagen and Procter & Gamble. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
September 12, 2022
11:03:15 a.m. Eastern(…)
JOE BIDEN: A true sense of national unity. To me, that's the greatest lesson of September 11.
[Cuts back to live]
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: So the question is, has that lesson been lost? I mean, it's -- it's one of those things where it didn't matter what side of the aisle you were on, people united. Much like we did during the pandemic, in the early days of the pandemic, where people just were like, let me take care of my neighbor. What's happened? What's been lost with the loss of civility?
ANA NAVARRO: I think we're in such a polarized moment right now, and I – you know, yesterday when I was watching the commemorations, I'm -- I'm so glad that we as a country take the time year after year, but that hashtag, “Never Forget” has got to be more than a hashtag, and we must never forget that sense of unity we all felt that day.
I think the big difference is that it was an attack from a foreign foe. But we have had such horrible things that have happened in this country since. They're not the same. Every tragedy is uniquely tragic and sad, but January 6 was a horrible attack on the United States and on democracy. We’ve had shootings where children have died. There have been horrible attacks on the United States and on civility, and on the United States, and what we stand for. We’ve had the pandemic. And those things have not brought us together.
So if anything, if we're going to honor 9/11, one of the ways to do it is to realize there are times when there should be no politics, and it should be about being an American.
SUNNY HOSTIN: Well, yeah. I think, Ana -- yeah.
[Applause]
I think you hit the nail right on the head in the sense that we came together as a country because it was a foreign adversary. That is why I think -- it was an act of foreign terrorism, and so we felt like, how dare you come to our country and harm us?
The biggest threat to our country today says the FBI's director is white supremacy and domestic terrorism. Merrick Garland said the biggest threat to our democracy is white supremacy and domestic terrorism.
How do you come together when it's homegrown terror? And we have never addressed why there is that issue that remains in this country 400 years later, and until we get to that, until we have accountability, we are not, I don't think ever going to be able to come close to what we saw in terms of unity.
(…)
