As the country gears up for various 250th anniversary celebrations, the hosts of “The View” were a bit conflicted on Friday morning, after a recent poll found that “two out of three Republicans are proud to be an American, but fewer than one in five Democrats feel the same.” According to the ABC hosts, it’s possible to be both proud and “horrified” right now.
“I went through a civil war, I fled communism, and I live in a community in South Florida that is full of people who have fled political turmoil and oppression, and so I will never take for granted the freedom, the refuge, the opportunity that this country awarded me, and so many other immigrants who have come here,” host Ana Navarro conceded.
“But I think you can separate feeling proud of America, feeling proud of being an American, feeling proud of the exceptionalism and resilience of this country, and feeling really ashamed and embarrassed and horrified by the American government right now.”
Navarro went on to call out incidents at various protests across the country in recent months, where American citizens have been killed, the conditions in the Trump administration’s detention centers, and more.
“So yes! Yes, damn it! I am ashamed of that,” she added. “But I will never stop being proud of being an American.”
Host Alyssa Farah Griffin readily agreed, arguing that Navarro’s sentiments were “very well said.” Farah Griffin quickly counted herself among the Republicans who are proud to be an American, but also highlighted that the country has problems.
“And I don’t think that being proud to be American means that you can’t acknowledge our country has tremendous flaws,” she said. “And we call this country an experiment in democracy, because it’s not guaranteed, because we’re actually a very young country.”
“What makes us so unique, and one of the things that makes me love this country so much, is we’re unlike any other country on earth in that we are racially, religiously, and socioeconomically incredibly diverse. There’s no country on earth that has that.”
You can watch the full discussion from “The View” in the video above.
