Dave Rubin did a service to everyday Americans this week by posting a DM clip that lays bare exactly how out of touch the network cocktail circuit has become. The footage shows co-hosts of The View confidently misreading the politics of the moment, treating a nationwide backlash and a government funding crisis like a theatrical morality play rather than a real problem hurting real people.
On-air personalities like Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar spent the segment insisting that mass “No Kings” demonstrations are proof that the public is paralyzed by fear of authoritarianism, while wringing their hands over crude social-media provocations. Their moral grandstanding ignored the scale and substance of the protests and instead amplified the elite narrative that discomfort equals tyranny, a lazy intellectual shortcut from a media class that never meets a protest it doesn’t reflexively praise.
What makes that kind of punditry dangerous is how it distracts from the real crisis at hand: the federal government has been shut down since October 1, 2025, with hundreds of thousands of public servants furloughed and critical services strained. The arithmetic of policy and appropriations is not glamorous television fodder, but it matters to families living paycheck to paycheck—and yet the show treated it like background noise while debating feelings and symbolism.
Meanwhile, organizers and local reporters cataloged millions of Americans taking to the streets in cities across the country, not to stage a trendy performance but to demand accountability from their leaders and to register anger at corruption and overreach. That kind of civic energy ought to be met with sober reporting and inquiry, not congratulatory chest-thumping from hosts who have built entire careers on sanctimonious hot takes. The people protesting deserve dignity; they deserve coverage, not condescension.
Dave Rubin’s clip is more than Schadenfreude for conservatives; it’s a reminder that media elites will keep misreading the country unless the rest of us keep calling them out. While television panels snipe about “authoritarianism,” actual Americans are losing paychecks, facing delays at airports, and watching government machines slow to a crawl—real harms that pundits owe voters plain answers about.
If the left’s cultural arbiters want to be taken seriously, they should stop performing outrage and start demanding solutions from their favored politicians. Whoopi Goldberg even suggested politicians stop taking salaries until the shutdown is resolved, a performative stunt that plays well to a studio audience but does nothing for the mail carriers, TSA officers, and contractors who are hurting today. Conservatives and independents alike should keep pressuring elected officials to reopen the government, and keep holding the media accountable when it substitutes virtue signaling for reporting.
