Meghan McCain likely tainted The View forever: She made for entertaining TV, but not for healthy discourse

Salon.com

"She'll be missed – and that's a problem," says Melanie McFarland of McCain's exit Friday after four years on the ABC daytime show. "To The View, McCain was more than a spout of parbaked twaddle delivered with tell-it-like-it-is confidence," says McFarland. "She was a voice of false equivalency and 'but what about'-ism, representing America's extreme right-wing Karens. Occasionally she would vanish when a guest with whom she didn't want to engage appeared. But she wasn't just a purveyor of half-truths and Fox News talking points. She offered the very important perspective of women who make everything all about them. Whether a given episode's Hot Topics concerned reproductive rights, identity politics, voting rights, cancel culture, protests against police brutality, anti-Asian violence, or anything related to the pandemic – especially as it pertains to who's to blame for stagnating vaccination rates (hint: it's Republicans, Meghan!) – McCain always found a way to redirect the road trip right back to her doorstep. Except, that is, on the topic of nepotism. For that, she had bright orange detour signs to redirect us." McFarland adds: "Four years' worth of her eyebrow-raising blurts made The View a central media attraction. But that wasn't entirely about her. Whoopi Goldberg's confused and horrified reactions at her opinions were GIF goldmines. Joy Behar's acerbic rebuttals and outright smackdowns and Sunny Hostin's educational reads gave life to late-night comedy monologues and slow news days. For people who live to drag dumb takes on social media, McCain and the conflict she created were reliable ways of bumping up in an era that's generally bummed us out. She was exhausting, but what she brought out in Behar, Goldberg and Hostin made for memorably entertaining TV. But entertaining TV isn't necessarily good for healthy discourse. Often its effects are the opposite, tilting what should be illuminating exchanges into street brawls. The View has lasted for 24 seasons and cycled nearly two dozen co-hosts through the New York City studios where it's been produced. The show will certainly outlast McCain. Remaining to be seen is whether the havoc she regularly wrought since joining in 2017 will permanently change its chemistry, much in the way some drugs can permanently alter brain function. In this scenario, the drug is frivolous anger. Anger is a natural human emotion – healthy even, in the right circumstances. A motivator, when applied purposefully. Angry gets s**t done. Frivolous anger functions differently, acting more like an opioid than a benign stimulant. The longer that it's intravenously pumped into our systems, the more difficult it is to quit. Anyone who survived the last five years knows this all too well." 

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• What made Meghan McCain good TV at the beginning eventually became a curse: "McCain’s increasingly vitriolic comments, self-absorption and constant claims of being misunderstood reached new peaks," says Lovia Gyarkye, adding: "When Barbara Walters started The View in 1997, she envisioned it as a space where women from different generations and with opposing views could come together and chat. Opinions were, and continue to be, the point of the program. McCain’s bratty antics initially benefited ABC: Even if you didn’t like what she said, it was easy to become addicted to the drama she created. But what made McCain good TV at the beginning eventually became a curse. Her behavior — immature, petulant and brimming with negativity — grew old. The show became less about the dynamic set of hosts and the interplay between them, and more about her. If McCain felt a topic beneath her, she made it known. If she felt attacked, she made it known. If she was even mildly annoyed, well, you guessed it: She made it known. Some of her cohosts, like Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines, became near-stoic in the face of McCain’s outbursts. They often responded with poker faces and pleasant smiles."