'The View' on Republicans being shamed for their beliefs

“The View” co-hosts shared their experience on Friday with Republicans feeling shame for their political leanings.

“The Republican party has changed recently and I grew up in a Republican family,” Abby Huntsman said. “Socially I’m often not where the party often is.... Sometimes there’s a misconception about what the Republican party is. You can’t paint [with] a broad brush [believing] all Republicans are the same.”

The co-hosts discussed how that gap can be bridged?

“I think in one sense, people need to be more accepting of people and not see the politics first, and say, ‘They might be a Republican -- but who are they as a person?’ I also think the Republican party needs to get a better branding, they need to talk to people better.”

Sunny Hostin said her daughter Paloma’s seventh-grade civics project opened her eyes to the fear some Republicans have of being judged.

Hostin said her daughter was asked to speak to an Independent, a Democrat and a Republican about their political choices, and when she was phoning Republican relatives, “every person that she called was like, ‘Well I don’t want to be on the record on this,’ like ‘Paloma, are you putting my name on this?'”

Hostin said the reaction stunned her.

“Are you serious?" she wondered aloud. "This is a seventh-grade civics thing! And I was so shocked at that: your own family members didn’t want to be identified as Republicans who voted for Trump.”

Co-host Meghan McCain agreed.

“There are gross stereotypes everywhere,” she told her co-hosts.

“I know a lot of people… who were very private about their politics,” McCain said of living in Los Angeles.

“It happens to me all the time," she said. "People come up to me and are like ‘I’m a Republican too, I’m a gun owner too, I’m a NRA owner too' ... like in a way that they feel ... ashamed ... or they don’t want to get harassed about it!”

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