“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin claimed the Democrats are the party of centrists, while Republicans are “extremists” on a Tuesday episode.
The co-hosts talked about Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette allegedly walking alongside Proud Boys to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, leading Hostin to claim the Republican Party has become the party of “insurrectionists” and “extremists.”
“The Republican Party is really the party of insurrectionists, it’s the party of white supremacy, and it’s also an extremist party,” Hostin said. “If you look at the state, there’s a new report that shows just how extensively the far-right groups and the Republican Party have intertwined. More than 1 in 5 Republicans state legislators in the U.S. are affiliated with far-right groups and that works out to about 22% of all Republican state legislators. This is what the party is today and the rhetoric that she’s spewing out is apparently very attractive to the base.”
Co-host Joy Behar said the majority of the country does not align with extremist views and supports upholding Roe v. Wade and enacting gun control laws. She said Republicans are being elected due to the lack of Americans that show up to the polls.
“If those people vote, we can get rid of these horrible people,” Behar said. (RELATED: Sunny Hostin Says Being A ‘Black Republican’ Is An ‘Oxymoron’)
Co-host Sara Haines said Republicans have no moderate candidates, but conservative voters do not have the option to elect a candidate that aligns with their views. Haines then noted that is in second place in the Pennsylvania primary race, despite her reportedly saying Islam is a “worldview” and homosexuality is “breeding pedophiles.”
“Because they are playing to the base,” Hostin added. “If you look at all the studies, the Republican Party has moved further to the right than Democrats have to the left. There’s a Pew Research Center analysis that finds that on average, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years and that ideological divide breaks down to the Republican Party being an extremist party. And the Democratic Party actually, as you mentioned Sara, is moving more to the center.”
Behar said a candidate cannot win the primary race without saying “crazy stuff” but then “change their tune” in the general election.
A Pew Research study from March found that Republicans moved further to the right than Democrats to the left, but showed that both parties have become more “ideologically cohesive.” There are currently around only two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
