Meghan has an extreme and pervasive lack of self-awareness: she doesn't seem to realize that it isn't because she's a conservative Republican per se why people dislike her and criticize her. Along with her white privilege, Meghan exhibits many additional flaws:
1.) She's anti-intellectual (as you've already covered, in your article), clinging to the most ridiculous and overly-simplistic right-wing talking-points, despite her vocal criticism of Donald Trump himself.
2.) She's unapologetically ageist, constantly railing against young people, including her own generation (Millennials, the generation to which I also belong). This clearly comes from a place of self-loathing; Meghan has all but admitted as much. This is one of the few areas in which Joy Behar (and sometimes Whoopi) shares in Meghan's bigotry.
3.) She whines about how America has become so "tribal" (as she frequently describes it), yet, she herself is complicit in that tribalism by defending the perpetuation of right-wing activism from judicial conservatives (most notably her outright cowardice by failing to call out Mitch McConnell's obstruction and hypocrisy; and, in some cases, she tacitly cheers him on).
4.) She tries to act like a "conservative feminist" by railing against misogyny...but she usually only rails against it when it's directed at conservative women such as herself (especially when it's criticism she's received from "Bernie bros"). She backs up this mindset by tossing around occasional platitudes of virtue-signaling that are anti-male and anti-White in rhetoric. But, ultimately, she acts as though Republicans are some endangered species (of which conservative women are supposedly an even more persecuted subset).
5.) She refuses to acknowledge any nuances insofar as reproductive freedoms go. In her view: "Abortion is murder." Period. She's even blatantly stated that, on-air. Many times. She tries to gaslight pro-choice people as supporting "infanticide" (which most of us DON'T), but she refuses to meet anywhere near the middle on the broader issue of abortion legality.
6.) She claims to be an ally to the LGBT community (especially invoking the namesake of her "bestie," Clay Aiken) and touting her support for same-sex marriage...yet, she offers ideological sanctity to those same right-wing judges who'd swiftly overturn such marriage equality (and other issues faced by LGBT people) in a heartbeat.
7.) She often praises public figures who exhibit toxic behavior...Bill Maher and Joe Lieberman are the two who most immediately come to mind. But she predicates that affection on her close, personal friendships and affection with them...with no regard to how their words/actions fan the flames of discord, and, consequently, hurt others. Again, she makes it all about HER.
8.) She whines and pouts, on-air, about there not being enough time in the segment for her to contribute all of her commentary, or she lashes out at the studio audience (pre-pandemic). I empathize. I agree with Meghan that live studio audiences can be unduly obnoxious. But don't just gripe about it. Talk to your producers about it. Talk to the network about it. Bite back at the audience, when they heckle you. Although Meghan would probably experience less of that, in the first place, if she wasn't such a self-involved political hack.
I could go on and on: but Meghan doesn't seem capable of realizing that her BEHAVIOR is the problem. Past cohosts of "The View" such as Nicolle Wallace, Abby Huntsman, Sherri Shepherd, Candace Cameron Bure, and Paula Faris all espoused conservative beliefs, at one point or another. But most of the time, they managed some modicum of civil restraint when expressing themselves. Even the judgmental Elisabeth Hasselbeck showed more compassion, overall, than Meghan does.
The difference: none of them exhibited the outright disrespect and vapidity that Meghan exhibits toward political topics or other people.
