It’s been just under a month of Meghan McCain’s stint as the new “conservative voice” on ABC’s daytime talk show The View, and her integration into the moderately diverse round table of women, as well as her transformation into a more mainstream television personality, has been tepid to say the least. From her very first day and introduction, McCain has come off as somewhat uncomfortable, from her body language of a slightly hunched back and folded hands, to her facial expressions which range from pained smile to pained squint. She rarely looks or sounds genuinely excited or enthusiastic to be a part of the panel discussions, and when the topics veer from anything having to do with politics or the military she’s often quiet or offers an opinion in a tone of voice that seems to suggest such a conversation is beneath her. Perhaps this has been her style of on-camera performance since her days at Fox News (I genuinely don’t know having never been a Fox News viewer), but it’s rather off-putting for a daytime talk show that oscillates between political/cultural debates and selling products directed toward housewives with children.

It certainly seems possible that her father’s medical struggles currently weigh heavily on her mind and it’s affecting her general demeanor, which is understandable. Senator McCain’s battle with cancer is a frequent topic of discussion and it’s clear that she is lovingly devoted to her father and family in general, and seems deeply emotionally disturbed by watching him go through his treatment. That being said, she has spoken openly of how she was encouraged by Senator McCain himself to take the gig, and so to appear as if this were a begrudging decision only serves to make her more unappealing. Her frequent invoking of the emotional trauma of going through a family illness at times almost feels like a buffer which allows her to offer banal commentary or to interrupt other hosts and guests with her anecdotal experiences without fear that anyone will come down hard on her. In more recent episodes it certainly appears that some of the other hosts are biting their tongues not to verbally thrash her for some of her more obnoxious and grating moments. But at least in speaking about her father’s struggles she comes across as sympathetic and even somewhere close to passionate. In contrast her announcement of her own engagement to a longtime boyfriend was so awkward and unenthusiastic it bears questioning why she even said “yes.” But aside from problems with her on-air personality is the simple fact that her commentary on issues she claims are of importance to her are also significantly lacking in any substance or depth that would make her insights compelling.

Take her questioning of San Francisco 49ers player Eric Reid during a discussion of kneeling for the national anthem in her first week on the job. She began her inquiry claiming that “an overwhelming number of polls show that the majority of Americans think that what you’re doing is wrong” before reiterating the incorrect narrative that the kneeling protests have anything to do with the American flag or the military, a narrative that Reid had minutes before already refuted and explained as false. Never did she explain where these supposed polls had come from or what exactly these polls had actually asked participants. Was she stating that the majority of Americans think that protesting against police brutality is wrong? That disrespecting the flag or the military is wrong? That kneeling during the national anthem, whatever the reason, is wrong? This kind of dumbing down of issues that are complex is typical of conservative news media, but on The View where even past conservative hosts have allowed for a more layered discussion of polarizing topics, it felt awkwardly simplistic and elementary. She also stated in this same episode that she would also have walked out of a football game where players knelt for the anthem as did VP Mike Pence, which in itself was a protest against something that Pence feels is wrong, much like the players’ protest against police brutality and systemic racism. The correlation between these acts of protest and the irony of the whole affair was seemingly lost on her.

This same lack of substantive analysis came when Rep. Frederica Wilson phoned in to address why she informed the press of President Trump’s seemingly insensitive comments to the widow of a fallen soldier. After Wilson had explained her extensive personal connection to the family and her own emotional distress at his death and the President’s comments, McCain admonished her for “politicizing military deaths,” apparently forgetting that less than 72 hours before the President himself had used the deaths of the four soldiers in Niger to bolster his own image in contrast to former presidents by falsely claiming that they never made calls to families to express condolences. When Wilson called Trump a “liar” to uproarious applause from the audience, McCain sulked that she didn’t find it appropriate for people to be cheering such a statement, despite the fact that it has been factually proven on hundreds of occasions by apolitical sources that Trump has, in fact, lied. Again, this type of commentary which ignores basic facts, logical analysis and simple connections that even children are able to make with their brains is something that works consistently on Fox News, but it doesn’t serve McCain well here.

When McCain isn’t reminding the audience of her go to talking points that many members of her family are decorated veterans, that she was a “political commentator” on Fox News, or appearing self-congratulatory for how close her family is to numerous other Senators and Congresspeople, she sometimes has some useful insight into how the President maintains his appeal to his core base. And yet though she claims not to be a Trump supporter, her constant use of his now conspicuous phrase “on both sides” aligns her politics much closer to his camp than she would have us believe. Borrowing again from the pivoting and distracting tactics common to conservative news commentary, McCain seems determined to shine light on the hypocrisy of the Left and of left-leaning media by pointing out discrepancies in coverage, but alas wholly ineffectively. When the Weinstein scandal broke, McCain made much ado about the mainstream media’s (rightful) vilification of conservative figureheads like Bill O’Reily and Roger Ailes for sexual harassment allegations and claimed that Weinstein was not being subjected to similar treatment. Days later Weinstein’s empire had crumbled, he was effectively excommunicated from Hollywood, excoriated by the media, and McCain never addressed these particular claims of hypocrisy again. When it comes to commenting on the military, she’s visibly emotional and disturbed by political discussions surrounding fallen soldiers from “both sides,” and yet refused to acknowledge the grotesque display of hypocrisy from an administration who trotted out four-star General John Kelly to disparage Rep. Wilson with false claims and politicize the death of his own son, and then refused to acknowledge or apologize for undeniably proven dishonesty. She seems eager to claim that “both sides” are in the wrong on many issues, borrowing from the Trump administration’s playbook of pivoting to Obama or Hillary Clinton, even on topics where invoking their names holds little relevance, but cannot offer any critical analysis if it calls for her to question certain American institutions, specifically the military (or any member thereof) and esoteric concepts of national pride. Unquestioning loyalty to militarism and blind nationalism are core values to her, understandably due to her upbringing, but they do not make her an effective or interesting commentator on political or cultural debate. And if any valuable insight she does have is limited to a few scant topics, and her abilities as a compelling or likeable media daytime television personality are dubious at best, then what is she really bringing to the program?

McCain’s brand of social, political and cultural commentary is the kind of basic, myopic and ultimately hollow fluff that won’t be fact checked or contradicted in the echo chamber of conservative news media, and it’s in that realm where she should have stayed if she wanted to continue a career in television. Similarly, if she were a far left-wing commentator her limited skill set and style of sound bites and overused talking points would be equally as useful. But in the environment of The View, where she’s tossed into the ring with a generally more thoughtful, considered and diverse group of women who tend to back up their opinions with facts and data, she seems terribly outmatched and ill-suited for the task at hand.

Religion has played a key role in structuring our society this way. As soon as religion was organized into governing, social and cultural power structures it was weaponized not only to police people’s thoughts and behaviors, but to ensure that people would police other people’s thoughts and behaviors. Concepts of “morality,” some based on simple tenets such as kindness, compassion and respect existed, but so also did arbitrary notions of “right and wrong” or “good and bad” that simply served the interests of the ruling class. Human sexuality and romantic relationships seem to have always been on the short list of heavily monitored, prescribed and policed behaviors, and modern human conflicts of religion versus secular still lean heavily toward these factors. Take two of the most enduring modern conservative/religious political battles which still have the power to swing American elections: abortion and LGBTQ rights. Both are at their essence rooted in the desire to control and police human bodies and those bodies’ sexuality. Religion at least derives its self-righteous desire for individuals to concern themselves with what other individuals are doing through reading, ignoring and (mis)interpretations of certain scriptures. As shrug-inducing as this may be to non-believers, at least religious zealots have actual text to point to in order to justify their beliefs, even if there isn’t much logic to judging others based on philosophies they don’t even believe in and then expecting them to endow any weight to said philosophies. An ongoing conundrum of modern American (and human) civilization indeed.

Separate from organized religion, and a much more recent human phenomena that operates in a similar fashion, stands the social media age. Whereas older generations were driven mostly by their various concepts of “morality,” mostly derived from one organized faith or another, social media has given rise to a whole new era of the false belief that anything that pops into one’s head is worthy of world wide broadcast. Working in tandem with the rise in popularity of the celebrity famous for being famous (not a new concept but given new life via the vast and wide-ranging medium of the internet), an individual’s social media acts as their own personal reality show in which the import of anything they say and do is validated by those who follow, “like” and comment. Similar in concept to religious proselytizing but without a literal text to back it up, mediums like Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter encourage us to disseminate our thoughts (i.e. opinions and beliefs) to others, believe that they are real and factual based on nothing but our own sense of self importance, and to double down on them when challenged. We’ve seen this inclination play out all the way to the current presidential administration. Statements don’t have to be based on facts, evidence, experience or tangible knowledge of any kind, and when questioned or challenged for proof, they simply stand for themselves in a kind of infallible state of being. Phrases like “well that’s just my opinion,” “we can agree to disagree,” and “i said what i said/i think what i think” proliferate and guard against any need for a reality, fact-based discussion or analysis of anything.

This is not to say that people shouldn’t be allowed to hold different belief systems or that everything a person thinks and feels must be backed up with hard data and evidence for it to be “real.” The concept of “reality” to a certain extent is subjective and obviously in the case of many faith based ideas and philosophies there is a suspension of disbelief that one must adhere to. Yet the major overarching mistake that both many organized religious practices and the modern age of social media relevance make is to presuppose that something one person believes is or should be of any relevance to another. There are, of course, a few universal things that the majority of humans will agree fall into binary categories of “right and wrong,” Violence, terror, and cruelty are mostly regarded as evils of society, despite many religious/philosophical practices that delve into and make use of them in various ways. Forgetting those social ills for the sake of this discussion, on matters more pertaining to autonomous, individual concepts of behavior and desire rooted in the corporal, there is far too much concern woven into the fabric of our culture for what others are doing with their own minds and bodies. What religion one practices, who they have sexual or romantic relationships with and what kind of shapes those relationships take, how they clothe and decorate their own bodies, etc. etc. really should not concern anyone who isn’t directly involved in their life. Beyond that, one’s unsolicited opinion about things they have no involvement, experience, or knowledge of is irrelevant. It’s one thing to be aware of this and to offer one’s thoughts anyway for the sake of engagement, discussion or even conflict, if that’s your prerogative. But even with the ironic and misleading disclaimer “it’s just my opinion” so often in place to indicate that you don’t seek validation despite the fact that you are putting it out there, people need to be aware that in actuality, no one is obligated to care about your opinion and most people simply don’t or won’t. They’re living their lives unbothered by your objections to whatever they’re doing that rubs you the wrong way. Your belief system is not of any importance to someone who does not share that same belief system, and it’s a waste of your time and energy insisting that it should be.

The best way to present your ideas to the world is to stick to things within the realm of your own experience or education and to offer them in a way that doesn’t negatively judge others for thinking or living differently from yourself. And even then still, no one is obligated to care. Even if you are highly educated or informed on any given issue, you will never be an authority on another person’s life and experience. Part of your own journey through consciousness should be accepting that humans are vastly different from one another in a myriad of ways, and that we have little to gain from attempting to control, alter or suppress innate characteristics within each other, especially in the name of socially contructed moral or philosophical belief systems that not everyone shares. The only thing that happens when you put your negative, judgemental and baseless thoughts out into the world and then stand by them when challenged is that you look ignorant and closed minded. Far too many people are concerned with things that others are doing which they not only don’t understand but also have no direct affect on them whatsoever. It’s that lack of comprehension that compels people to want everyone to know that they “disagree” or “don’t approve” or “would never” and to believe that anyone else should give a damn about that. So many of the social and cultural clashes that continue to divide modern Americans from another could at least be lessened if more people simply worried about their own business, their own behavior and stayed in their own lane. To quote (sometimes problematic himself) drag icon RuPaul, “If they ain’t payin’ your bills, pay them bitches no mind.” It’s an ideology that can go both ways. And now that I’ve written this verbose diatribe full of opinions about how no one should care about people’s opinions, feel free to disregard all of it.

First of all, the changes to the Philadelphia flag have zero affect on anything else but that. There was no campaign to alter the flag universally or to force anyone elsewhere to adopt this new flag. As some pointed out, adding black and brown did not represent inclusion for other ethnic groups that don’t identify with those colors, and while that is true, they weren’t meant to. This was not a move to create a new flag that includes all people of color. It was very specific to Black and Brown folks within Philly’s community only. Secondly, the idea that “there is only one Gay Pride flag,” as someone on a Facebook thread suggested to me, is simply not true. A quick Google search reveals there are over a dozen flags to symbolize different sub-groups within the larger LGBTQ blanket. The rainbow symbol (the colors of which have also been altered since its inception) became the universal symbol flown above gay bars, parade floats, LGBTQ friendly businesses, etc. That in no way, shape or form discounts the validity of other flags that represent specific groups. One is not more “real” than the other, just as one type of queer identity is not more valid than another, something those claiming the rainbow flag is some untouchable sacrament would do well to remember.

Coincidentally in the last week, another alteration of the Pride flag appeared on the internet which did not spark outrage or vitriol but instead was met with delight and joviality. A fictional monster from the horror film “The Babadook” became a new icon of LGBTQ identity and no one seemed to have any issue with that image plastered across the beloved rainbow and proliferated across cyberspace. No less than four think pieces from major media outlets addressed how the Babadook character can be read as a metaphor for queer identities in various ways. One could only conclude from the differing reactions to both of these alterations of the flag that dominant LGBTQ culture, largely represented by white gay males, would rather have a fictional, child terrorizing demon as their Pride symbol than actual, real life Black and Brown folks.

So here we really come to the underlying issue of it all. Many white gay men (and those who identify more with them than groups or cultures of color) feel a sense of ownership over LGBTQ identity, and will not only swiftly but fiercely defend that sense of ownership when they feel it is challenged by people of color. The Pride flag isn’t actually an inclusive LGBTQ symbol, it is their symbol, it belongs to them, and how dare anyone try to take it away from them. Their sense of ownership is emboldened and reaffirmed by seeing the chiseled and muscular bodies of white gay men on almost every local or national gay magazine cover and nearly every party flyer, and by seeing themselves as the go to gay male character in nearly every television show or film. The fact that the modern gay rights movement was born from Black, Brown and trans people is a matter of historical nitpicking compared to a big budget film that centers a cisgender white man as the face of our movement that is supposed to represent pride for us all. That it was not middle and upper class white gay men vacationing on Fire Island and adhering to public decency laws, but instead trans women of color throwing bricks through windows on Christopher Street who are the reason we even have a Gay Pride celebration in the first place is a reality from which they are completely disconnected. The irony of declaring inclusivity and color blindness but then being outraged by the addition of more colors to a flag is completely lost on them. The flag debate has once again exposed what every person of color who participates in mainstream LGBTQ culture already knows: that we are often and regularly perceived by many white gays as guests in someone else’s house. In response to this illumination of the same old story playing out again and again I suggest more sub-groups within our community create flags that they feel represent themselves. Create a flag for LGBTQ East Asians. Create a flag for people of size. Create a flag for differently abled LGBTQ people. Borrow liberally from the template of the all inclusive rainbow. Add as many colors to the flag as you want and fly it high whenever you feel like it. The Pride flag does not belong to anyone, it belongs to everyone.

The churning sounds of a race car engine against the iconic cackle of drag icon RuPaul reverberated through our TV screens for the first time nearly ten years ago, beginning the slow burn and long climb toward mainstream success of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” What some of us knew from that very first low budget, too brightly lit, Vaseline lens season was that this was a monster of a reality show competition, one that combined elements of several that had come before it to create the ultimate challenge. These queens are required to truly have it all, and over the years the numerous skill sets that have been tested have separated the amateurs from the experts, the clueless from the quick witted, the painters from the artists, and the seamstresses from the hot glue girls. Along the way there have always emerged stars, some of whom are polished to drag perfection from years in the business, and some who despite their inexperience, contain qualities that grab hold of our emotions and won’t let go.

I’ve nursed season long love affairs with several queens over the past nine years, and yet I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such a deep attachment to one that I find as difficult to explain as my feelings for Valentina. There are the obvious reasons that she’s become the fan favorite of Season 9, as fellow contestant Aja ever so graciously pointed out in that now iconic “Untucked” monologue. She is beautiful, with a radiant smile all beauty pageant contestants dream of, and carries herself with such dignity and grace and a quiet but powerful aura of purpose and intentionality that shines through. And yet something else made me fall so deeply in love with this queen who admitted in this season’s first episode that she had been doing drag for less than a year at the time she was cast, much to the chagrin of some of the other contestants who were clearly shook by her level of polish and poise for such a newbie.

The difficulty in explaining Valentina’s appeal is because it comes from an emotional place, a feeling rather than a specific skill set that can be pinpointed and analyzed. I think it began with her unabashed and unapologetic love and embracing of her Mexican heritage. American popular culture so often uses Mexican culture as a punch line like sombreros on drunk white people for Cinco de Mayo and a cartoon caricature of a mouse with a thick accent, or for something more sinister like xenophobic fears of criminals and “illegals” who will terrorize white communities and steal jobs that belong to “real” citizens. Valentina’s bright, colorful, effervescent and beautiful celebration of her Mexican heritage spits in the face of those perversions, something that is all at once fiercely brave and critically political under the current administration. To see her walk down the runway as an overjoyed bride in a tribute to her mother was also a moment that grabbed me. The artifice of drag so often comes with a tongue in cheek gag or a wink to it’s inherent, over the top ridiculousness, but the smile that beamed from Valentina’s face during that runway challenged read so genuine that I couldn’t help but believe she was living her dream by reveling in the love she feels for the woman who raised her. It was one of those “Drag Race” moments that breaks through and reminds us how this is a show about real people beyond their drag personas. In a competition where moments of discord between contestants, where shade and reads can sometimes dominate what we recall, Valentina has focused on bringing her best to the challenges and the runway without trashing or tearing other queens down to build herself up. She hasn’t blamed others for her missteps or fought to hear her voice drown out others. She has simply stayed on course with a quiet yet notable determination that divulges a burning desire to make it to the end, which makes her departure from the competition that much more shocking.

Ultimately, even her elimination has cemented Valentina’s appeal and position as one of the competition’s most memorable queens. Placed on the pedestal of perfection so early, many of us were eager to see her sail through to the crown. The bitterness and devastation of her loss, while upsetting and disappointing, is another element of her humanity that made so many of us fall for her. To watch her breakdown was painful, but also a brutally open and honest moment that reveals how deeply she felt the desire to succeed. Her own self-awareness and assessment of her downfall speaks for itself. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly she explained: “Everybody’s had that moment in their life when they’ve had everything they ever wanted in front of them, and all they have to do is go get it, but they just fucked up, and I fucked it up.” Even through the pain and heartbreak of defeat, I know Valentina will dust off her shoulders, take a deep breath and keep flashing us that beautiful smile.