A new Quinnipiac poll released this week found that more than half of Americans think that democracy isn’t working in the U.S., but “The View” host Alyssa Farah Griffin isn’t sure that’s true. According to the ABC host, democracy has just become too “nebulous” a term at this point.
Discussing the poll on Friday’s episode of “The View,” host Joy Behar directly blamed President Trump for people feeling this way, whereas Farah Griffin argued that it’s “more a reaction to people feeling like the system doesn’t work for them.”
“Millennials were the first generation that was likely to not do better than their parents were,” she explained. “The fact that people are working harder than ever and not being able to get ahead, and they feel like the American dream is unattainable.”
At that, Behar argued that Farah Griffin was calling out economic problems, rather than democracy, which is “completely different.” That prompted Farah Griffin to push back.
“I think that people throw around the term ‘democracy,’” she said. “I think Democrats totally over-calculated this last election. At the end of the day, if it’s a Tuesday morning, you’re deciding what bill you can afford to pay, you’re not voting on democracy, you’re voting on the cost of living.”
“It’s a nebulous term, it just doesn’t mean enough to people,” she continued. “I think people are frustrated with the cost of living, and they’re frustrated by the environment we live in.”
For her part, host Ana Navarro argued that democracy “didn’t mean enough” to voters simply because “they had forgotten how bad Trump was.”
“I think it meant a lot to people in 2020 when Joe Biden was first running, because we were just, you know, surviving that first Trump term,” she said. “I think if somebody was running now against Trump, people have been painfully reminded of what an authoritarian he is. It would be very different.”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
