Former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin is reportedly the new permanent co-host of ABC’s “The View.” Since Meghan McCain’s departure from the show, the network has struggled to find someone to fill the conservative seat, apparently searching for someone who claims to hold conservative values but is willing to abandon and even assail those values for the sake of The Narrative. It seems Farah Griffin finally proved to producers she was up to the task.
When Farah Griffin made her first appearance at the “Hot Topics” table last October, she began by desperately apologizing for serving in the Trump administration and bent the knee with nervous laughter to every insult her co-hosts threw at her.
She attempted to distance herself from Trump by noting that she was initially working under Vice President Pence. Co-host Sunny Hostin shot back, “So you’re not working for Darth Vader, but you’re a stormtrooper.”
Corporate media outlets called the exchange “embarrassing” for Farah Griffin, and it was, but not for the reasons they assume. What’s embarrassing is disowning your own previously held beliefs, convictions, and career’s work in exchange for seal claps, media attention, and the approval of Whoopi Goldberg.
In Farah Griffin’s subsequent appearances on “The View,” as well as on CNN and MSNBC, she contradicted her own publicly stated opinions on voter fraud, Jan. 6, Hunter Biden, and even former President Trump’s Covid response.
Secondhand embarrassment aside, this isn’t so much a loss for conservative media representation or even for Farah Griffin herself. The real mistake here is on ABC producers and their failure to understand their audience and their major ratings problem.
Under Meghan McCain’s reign in the conservative hot seat, “The View’s” ratings skyrocketed. The New York Times lauded it as the “Most Important Political TV Show in America,” and appearing as a guest on the show became a must for any politician running for office. Yet, the permanent talking heads and producers can’t see where that success was derived.
Even while remaining staunchly anti-Trump, McCain was never bullied into submission by her far-left co-hosts. Of course the heated exchanges and must-see-TV catfights drove ratings, but more than that, McCain represented the opinions of millions of American women who do not see their views shared anywhere else on network television. With McCain gone, and a weak-kneed Trump defector filling her place, what’s to keep those women tuning in when they can hear the same earful of leftist talking points from literally every other form of corporate media?
Perhaps now that Farah Griffin has earned her permanent spot (and her paycheck), she can grow a spine without worrying so much about nailing the audition, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. For people like Farah Griffin, Mediaite headlines and Twitter seal claps are far more rewarding than the affection of women in Middle America.
