Another week, another opportunity for Meghan McCain to say something incredibly racist on The View.
On Wednesday, McCain, who is the daughter of former U.S. Senator John McCain, expressed fear that “identity politics” would give an unfair advantage to Asians over white people in the job market.
“If you have someone more qualified who happens to be a white straight person who has more experience in whatever field they're being nominated for than a minority with less experience, are we in a place where this matters,” she asked during a panel discussion that was reacting to calls made by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) for more Asian American Pacific and Islander (AAPI) diversity within President Joe Biden’s cabinet.
“We’re going to a place where even if people need money, even if people are qualified to get into Ivy Leagues, race and gender is more important than your skill qualifications, the content of your character,” McCain added. “It is not what Martin Luther King Jr. preached. I think this is a very, very slippery slope.”
The reaction didn’t fare well publicly, with many on social media calling out McCain’s own entitled sense of nepotism. For the daughter of a longtime U.S. senator, who can’t seem to stop invoking her family ties in conversations that don’t ask for such, to try to cry foul on diversity went too far. Especially when this wasn’t the first time she’s made headlines for expressing views that attacked communities of color.
Last week, she had to apologize for defending Trump’s racist rhetoric last year in calling the pandemic the “Chinese virus.”
That wasn’t her first venture into that territory. “I think if the left wants to focus on P.C. labeling this virus, it is a great way to get Trump re-elected,” McCain said on The View during the height of coronavirus cases last March. “I don’t have a problem with people calling it whatever they want. It’s a deadly virus that did originate in Wuhan.”
It would take a rise in Asian hate crimes and John Oliver calling her out on Last Week Tonight before she would finally confess that “there is no doubt Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric fueled many of these attacks and I apologize for any past comments that aided that agenda.”
But here McCain goes yet again this week spewing anti-Asian bigotry that has once again “aided that agenda.” Hadn’t she learned from her previous mistakes? Or is she just so far removed from reality (or too cozied up with her white privilege) to even care?
Whatever the case may be, enough is enough. ABC, it’s time to break ties with McCain on The View.
During a time when our nation suggests its interest in racial healing, McCain’s vapid role as resident right-wing contrarian on The View has gotten tiring. If her mostly liberal co-hosts say the sky is blue, McCain will say it’s red for the sake of making herself stand out. Producers of the show might think they are giving us a “difference of opinion,” but at what point does playing devil’s advocate just afflict the audience more than it causes us to think?
Meghan McCain isn’t trying to make people think; she’s just a conservative talking head pushing conspiracy theories, fearmongering, and reinforcing racist rhetoric that she can repackage as patriotism. For example, who could deny how bizarre it was when she went on this tirade about being a “red-blooded, 100 percent American who celebrates freedom anyway I can” when discussing Oprah’s bombshell interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on The View.
"If we have two American women—Meghan Markle and Oprah Winfrey—who are single-handedly finishing what George Washington and our revolutionary counterparts did, I'm all for it," McCain added after remarking how “monarchies are stupid, the American experiment is the way to go.”
Seriously? That’s all she could come up with from watching the two-hour special that covered Markle’s accusations of racism, exclusion, and suicidal ideation during her experiences with the royal family? How tone-deaf can one be?
Whoopi Goldberg, who appeared confused like the rest of us watching, gave her a pointed “okaayyy” and a disgusted shake of the head. This brief, yet viral gesture, could sum up how many viewers have begun to feel about McCain’s presence on the hit show as she continues to troll diverse audiences each week.
So why would the network be keeping her? It might be because she has remained one of the most talked about co-hosts on the show in years. There’s not a week that doesn’t go by when her name is trending on social media for some problematic stance she’s taken or a mini-meltdown she has against progressive guests on the show.
But as racial uprisings and the pandemic have taken its toll, the deliberate counterviews taken by McCain are no longer entertaining or provocative. They're just simply infuriating. And stupid. The infamy of her presence on The View now mirrors that of Piers Morgan, the conservative firebrand who recently quit Good Morning Britain after being criticized for his response to Markle’s interview. Like Morgan, McCain has taken stark positions (often viewed as racist) against those on her show as a way to brand herself as a take-no-prisoners rebel. But in an era of Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, both are rebels without a cause—or one that’s aligned in white supremacy.
We all saw how far Piers crossed the line before it was time for him to leave. ABC shouldn’t wait that long before kicking McCain to the curb.
