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Meghan McCainThe View / Youtube screen grab

January 20, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – If you were told that the New York Times would be publishing a piece condemning a recent performance by one of the hosts of The View, you might think that a rebuke of Joy Behar’s recent decision to approvingly quote white nationalist Richard Spencer was forthcoming. But, unsurprisingly, you would be wrong. Shamira Ibrahim’s column “'The View' Has a Meghan McCain Problem” is snobby, condescending, and clueless.

I was not previously a huge Meghan McCain fan, but her tenure at The View has changed my mind. In fact, I’ve actually taken to watching clips of the show simply to watch her spar with her almost entirely liberal co-hosts. It takes guts to get up every day knowing that your colleagues find many of your views repulsive, that the audience will often boo your points of view, and that the progressive mob on Twitter will never be satisfied until they’re hoisting your head on a pike. But McCain does it, and she does it well.

While it is true that her co-hosts hold a range of views on different topics, it is also true that nobody is even close to being as conservative as McCain is. She is willing to tackle topics like abortion, despite knowing that several of her fellow panelists are fanatically “pro-choice.” She knows her view is not going to make her popular, but she makes the pro-life case anyway—because she knows it is the right thing to do. That takes genuine integrity.

There are very few pro-life voices on daytime television, and The View has an enormous audience. The fact that Meghan McCain is willing to tenaciously defend the pro-life position and call out the Democrats—and sometimes her co-hosts—on their abortion extremism is, from a cultural perspective, both significant and important. Her voice is enormously amplified by the platform, and this is precisely why progressives find her so infuriating—because she is reaching so many people with her perspective.

Ibrahim, of course, finds McCain’s enthusiastic defence of conservative principles to be “just exhausting.” Progressives these days are consistently irritated that they have to make their case, and McCain’s infuriating refusal to shut up and nod along must be very trying for those who prefer to cancel those they don’t have the courage to debate. Her views have made her the “most polarizing and predictable figure,” Ibrahim writes, “the common denominator in the show’s most contentious round tables as of late.”

In other words, the most conservative member of the panel often spars with the liberal members of the panel. The “pro-choice” members of the panel disagree with an unabashedly pro-life young woman. How shocking. Something must be done!

Ibrahim’s critique boils down to the fact that she finds McCain’s views wrongheaded and offensive, and her contributions to the lively discussions thus constitute an “injection of vitriol” which “undercuts the substantive political critique that is supposed to be raised during these segments.” Because Ibrahim finds many conservative ideas stupid, you see, McCain’s decision to express those ideas degrades the debate. The obvious solution, Ibrahim’s column implies, would be to get rid of McCain.

Conservatives—especially pro-life conservatives—are used to hearing Ibrahim’s tiresome tropes. Progressives seem to think everything would be so much less contentious if everyone simply agreed with them, which we could do if they weren’t so wrong about so many things. Meghan McCain does a great job of reminding them of this fact every week, and so she is now predictably the source of their ire. But the truth is that she’s not a “problem” for The View. She’s one of the only reasons it is worth watching.

Jonathon’s new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Terry Schilling, Executive Director of the American Principles Project, an organization dedicated to supporting family values and their expression in politics. Today’s episode delves into the debate surrounding governmental regulations on pornography, the arguments from various sides, today’s laws, and what we can do to protect our children and save our culture. You can subscribe here and listen to the episode below: 

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.