Actor Matthew McConaughey said in a new interview that “illiberals,” the “extreme” right and “cancel culture” are deepening the political divide in the United States.
The “True Detective” star re-emphasized comments he made earlier this month when he called out the hypocrisy of Hollywood elites asking conservatives to back President-elect Joe Biden despite how President Trump was treated during the four years of his administration.
“You need liberals. What I don’t think we need is the illiberals. And what I don’t think that some liberals see is that they’re often being cannibalized by the illiberals,” McConaughey said Tuesday on “Good Morning Britain.”
“Now there are extremes on both sides that I think are unfair, that I don’t think are the right place to be. The extreme left and the extreme right completely illegitimize the other side, the liberal and conservative side, which we need in certain places. The two extremes illegitimize those two sides. Or they exaggerate that side’s stance into an irrational state that makes no sense and that’s not fair when either side does that,” he continued.
McConaughey, addressing the topic on Russell Brand’s podcast “Under the Skin,” railed about how some in the entertainment business perceive everyday working people when it comes to their political views.
“[There is] a kind of offhandedness, 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 said during the interview.
McConaughey replied: “There are a lot [of people] on that illiberal left that absolutely condescend, patronize, and are arrogant towards the other 50 percent.”
He said some of his fellow Hollywood stars were in “denial” over Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and suggested it would be hypocritical for them to now expect Trump backers to jump on Biden’s bandwagon.
“[Now] it looks like Biden’s our guy. Now you’ve got the right that’s in denial, ’cause their side has fake news. And I understand, they’ve been fed fake news. No one knows what the hell to believe, right? So they’re putting down their last bastion of defense,” McConaughey said.
The “Dazed anad Confused” star went on to warn on “Good Morning Britain” that the corrosive effects of the cancel culture could eventually have dire effects on the First Amendment.
“Where the waterline is going to land on this freedom of speech and what we allow and what we don’t and where this cancel culture goes, where that waterline lands is a very interesting place that we are engaged in right now as a society that we’re trying to figure out because we haven’t found the right spot,” he said.