Following the school shooting in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas, Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves hopped on a flight to meet with the families who lost their loved ones in the tragedy. A lifelong supporter of the Second Amendment, the actor knew that something had to be done and threw himself into efforts to move the needle in Congress.
After penning a powerful op-ed calling for common sense “gun responsibility,” McConaughey met with leaders in Washington and gave a devastating speech at the White House. Surprisingly, McConaughey’s relentless efforts worked. Against all odds, he was able to broker talks across the aisle, which resulted in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that would “incentivize red-flag laws; enhance background checks, especially for those under twenty-one; crack down on straw purchases; and close the “boyfriend loophole,” among other provisions.”
However, the process to pass the bill left McConaughey even further disenchanted with the federal government. In a soul-baring essay for Esquire, the actor reflected on his experience from meeting with the families to dealing with the quagmire in Washington that seemingly had no interest in solving problems:
I learned just how frustrating politics can be. There’s often more arguing about where, how, and who started a fire than working together to put the damn thing out. It sometimes feels like politicians don’t really want solutions, because solutions would put them out of a job. Optics are often prized over substance—who gets the credit often takes precedence over whom that credit is serving, or how well. With a disparity between belief and action, it’s hard to be in the make-a-difference business if you’re only in the reelection business. I was told on more than two occasions that the best way to remain in power is to vote no on everything—and while I understand that the wheels of government are constitutionally engineered to spin slowly in the mud, I learned that some consider their political purpose to be holding the hose over the dirt. Our government has deficits to repair, and not just the monetary kind.
As McConaughey writes, “It seems that each party is so harmfully consumed by despising the opposition that they’ve become little more than counterpunchers—so focused on the parry and the party defense that they’ve become reactive by default. They’ve lost sight of their own values and vision, thereby ceding their power to the fringes. That’s a problem.”
The actor then made a bold proclamation about what can be done to fix Washington’s indifference to the lives of everyday Americans.
“That’s why it’s high time we take the megaphone back from the extremists who’ve been manufacturing these false fractures among us,” McConaughey writes. “They’ve been selling us soft porn at the pep rally for too long. It’s time to kick them off the port and starboard sides of the boat on which American democracy sails . . . or at least relegate them to mopping the deck.”
(Via Esquire)