Meghan McCain - Bad Republican: A Memoir

Contents

BAD REPUBLICAN

BAD REPUBLICAN

A MEMOIR

MEGHAN McCAIN

BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, TX

Bad Republican copyright 2022 by Marguerite Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: April 2022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951519

ISBN 9781637742136 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781637742143 (ebook)

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To Liberty

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Thomas Paine

The world aint all sunshine and rainbows. Its a very mean and nasty place and I dont care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it aint about how hard ya hit.

Its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

Rocky Balboa

CONTENTS

I was born in 1984, and I strongly relate to a millennial meme I saw on Instagram:

Welcome to your teenage years! Heres a global terrorism event to define your adolescence!

Welcome to adulthood! Heres a global recession!

Welcome to parenthood! Heres a global pandemic!

Dont know about the rest of you, but Im terrified of middle age.

In September 2020, I gave birth to my daughter, Liberty Sage. Id hated being pregnant so much that Id feared I wouldnt be suited to motherhood or I wouldnt love my baby enough. That fear went away the second the nurse handed her to me. I was instantly filled with an overwhelming, visceral love far beyond anything Id ever known. Looking at her, I couldnt stop thinking, Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I felt newly connected to the universe and to what it means to be a human being, and I knew I would do anything to protect her. Libertys birth and my fathers death are the two key events creating a before and an after in the story of my life.

At the time, I was filled with new, crippling fears of what might happen if I wasnt with her every second. I was consumed with irrational anxieties about terror attacks and other dangers. They were so vivid that they were paralyzing. Sleeping only in three-hour increments, I entered my own pandemic Twilight Zonenever sure if it was day or night. Talking to my friend on the phone, I said, What day is it, Monday? She said, Close! Thursday. I eventually had to go on medication for postpartum anxiety.

When I returned to The View from maternity leave in January 2021, I was happy to see my coworkers, even though we were still virtual, appearing via satellite from wherever they were spending the pandemic. I was alone with my cameraperson in the D.C. bureau.

Every other host whod had a baby returned to the show in a glow of goodwill, but that was not my experience. Whatever camaraderie wed established before I left seemed to have evaporated. Joy Behar, my liberal counterpart on the show, said on-air that she hadnt missed me at all. I did not miss you. Zero. Whoopi Goldberg shot down a riff of mine with an... Okay that went viral. The media had a field day attacking me. The postpartum hormones made me extra sensitive to every slight. It was a very rough reentry.

The pandemic kept dragging on and on, and I wasnt sure when Id be able to get a vaccine or if anything would ever go back to normal. Not to mention: the January 6 domestic terror attack on the Capitol took place my first week back. Like most Americans, I found it horrific and deeply upsetting.

When Joe Biden won the election, I thought our countryand our showwould enjoy a Kumbaya moment of unity. I expected Democratsparticularly those who I worked withto be overjoyed that Trump was gone. But, if anything, they seemed angrier than ever, squabbling even with one another. The air was thick with tension. I didnt know if it was COVID or the winter weather or the way that even after the Capitol attack, some prominent Republicans were refusing to reject QAnon, but my Democratic colleagues seemed more rage-filled in Bidens America than theyd been for the prior four years.

When I was writing this, in the weeks after the inauguration, barbed wire remained all over D.C., where I now live in the Beltway area. The vaccine was being rolled out, but we were still wearing masks, practicing social distancing, and unsure about how much longer the virus would be with us. And certain Republicans seemed to be doubling down on conspiracy theories in a way that tested my belief system.

Antidepressants have been helping me cope with hard-core COVID fatigue and an existential crisis about my political identity. The terror attack, online trolls, volatile mood at my workplace, and pregnancy hormones have combined to make me more scared and more overwhelmed than at any time since my dad died. And back then, I had a lot of support. This time, I feel totally alone.

Im still a Republican. At the same time, I dont see eye to eye with many in my party when it comes to Trump or old-guard social conservatism. Thats why my agent likes to jokingly call me a bad Republican.

Ive come to think that the nickname is kind of perfect. Its unclear how Id even go about being a good Republican these days. If youre not pro-Trump, then, to most of the party, youre a heretic. If you support supposedly liberal policy issues like gay rights and prison reform, which I do, youre seen as not truly conservative. If you havent completely rejected the party, Lincoln Projectstyle, then to everyone else, youre considered deeply problematicespecially if youre a pro-life woman, which is seen as being a traitor to your gender.

The good news is that I have a long history as an awkward stepchild of the Republican Party. When my father was running for president in 2008, his team found fault with everything from my bleach-blonde hair to my enthusiasm for beer and trashy reality shows. (His campaign staffers had a refrain about me that I likened to The Sound of Musics How do you solve a problem like Maria?)

Of course, when I started at my current job at The View as the only conservative host on a very liberal talk show, I was considered bad simply because I was a Republican. I support the military, school choice, freedom of speech, responsible fiscal policy, Israel, and the Second Amendment. I believe taxation is theft, and Im against cancel culture and hyper-wokeness. I dont believe that