Even The View Doesn’t Have Much Fight in It

It’s giving “oof.” Photo: The View via YouTube

In 2016, when Donald Trump was elected, it felt like the parts of the country that did not vote for him let out a pained wail for months, even years, afterward. This time around, it’s more of a pained silence. Or, at least, that what you’d think from watching today’s episode of The View. Famous for being a site of political contention (ahem, Rosie O’Donnell versus Elisabeth Hasselbeck), the show today saw the five hosts, who all oppose Trump, instead sorrowfully eulogizing democracy. Even the typically irascible Joy Behar was comparatively tame while expressing her dissatisfaction. “My takeaway is that the system worked,” she said on the show. “We live in a democracy. People spoke. This is what people wanted. I vehemently disagree with the decision Americans made, but I feel very, very hopeful that we have a democratic system in this country.”

Whoopi Goldberg followed suit, expressing the value of voting, then pivoting to saluting Vice-President Kamala Harris for what she did do. “She did this in two months,” Goldberg said firmly. “People didn’t come out, I don’t know why, and it doesn’t even matter. He is now the president.” Former Trump staffer and current Trump critic Alyssa Farah Griffin also focused on the massive support for the Republican candidate, saying “tens of millions of Americans, our friends, our neighbors, our family members, voted for Donald Trump.” “We disagree with them, I know we all do at this table, but they are good, decent people,” she asserted. Even famously passionate Ana Navarro seemed deflated. “I hope for the best for our country, and I make a commitment to our LGBTQ, to our immigrants, to our elderly, to our young girls, to the women, that we will not stop fighting,” she said. Only Sunny Hostin seemed her normal self, keeping her composure and her wits about her. “I remember my father telling me, many many years ago, that I was the first person in his family to enjoy full civil rights,” she said. “And now I have less civil rights than I had when he told me that.”

Compare this to their coverage after the 2016 election, when the women were bouncing off each other and seemed genuinely, earnestly fearsome. “Not only does he now threaten how things are going to be done with kids of color, with women’s rights, with my right to decide what is right for my body,” Goldberg intoned then, “but my friend’s children are afraid.” The View, as it is so good at doing, captured the country’s mood once again: depression. It’s going to be a long four years.