Thankfully at least one Hollywood A-lister sees a problem with the radical politics of many of his Hollywood colleagues.
In an interview with British comedian Russel Brand from last week, actor Matthew McConaughey discussed how many people in the entertainment industry are “illiberal,” that they “condescend, patronize, and are arrogant,” to the half of the country that’s conservative or that voted for Trump.
Brand invited the Austin, Texas native to his podcast on December 1 to promote his new book, Greenlights. Of course, the 51 year-old Dazed and Confused actor has an interest in politics, so the conversation between the two entertainers moved to that topic.
Brand prompted the discussion on Hollywood’s disgusting partisan behavior by remarking on how bad elites tend to treat the working class in both America and Great Britain. He mentioned the “condemnation and criticism” that “ordinary working people get.”
He observed that there’s a “kind of an offhandedness, of like, ‘Oh, they’re dumb, they’re voting for Brexit, they’re voting for Trump.’” “I don’t like it, and I don’t like to hear it,” Brand told the actor. Yeah, people can’t just say the most awful things about millions of Americans they don’t know and expect everyone to sign off on it.
McConaughey agreed, sharing his experience with seeing that same disdain for the average joe in his community. He told Brand, “There are a lot (of people) on that illiberal left that absolutely condescend, patronize, and are arrogant towards that other 50 percent.”
Though we all know that Hollywood is downright hateful towards people who don’t think like them. Your average Trump supporter is probably more used to being referred to as a Nazi or “fascist” more than he’s referred to by his full legal name. Perhaps McConaughey can serve as a Hollywood mirror for many in his communities who feel justified in their bitterness.
McConaughey, who considers himself “aggressively centrist” and who, in the past has urged Democrats to get behind President Trump for the sake of the country, put the blame of the current political divide in America on the “far left.”
He explained that the left’s anger for Trump has prevented people from coming together, especially with their denial of the results of the 2016 election. The actor stated, “Many people, I’m sure you saw it, in our industry, when Trump was voted in four years ago, they were in denial that it was real. Some of them were in absolute denial.”
Of course, the actor’s centrism came to play when saying that the right now has adopted this attitude in the wake of Biden’s election: “It looks like Biden’s our guy. Now you’ve got the right that’s in denial, because their side has fake news. And I understand, they’ve been fed fake news.” Yeah, well we’ll see. But again, McConaughey stressed that the left has contributed to this anger and denial, and that they’ll have to “understand the science of ‘meet you in the middle’ in order to walk back some of the resentment they’ve inspired in normal Americans.
Yeah, it’d be a nice start at the very least.
