So much for Matthew McConaughey
Earlier this month we saw just how difficult of a time actor Matthew McConaughey was going to have if he ended up running for Governor of Texas. In an attempt at splitting the difference when it came to COVID vaccines, he shot down anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories but also said that he didn’t currently plan to get his kids vaccinated. The answer, seemingly crafted to pander to voters in the middle, merely ended up playing poorly with everyone.
Now McConaughey has made official what we’ve increasingly been suspecting. Last night he posted a video announcing that he’s not going to run for Governor of Texas, or any other political office, any time soon. Notably, his video proved that he made the right decision – both for himself and the country – because the video itself was disqualifying.
McConaughey said that after spending two years “studying” politics, he’s concluded that both sides simply need to listen to each other and trust each other more. He talked of crossing party lines and such. This is, of course, the rhetoric that you hear from someone who has no understanding of anything that’s going on in politics – or from someone who’s afraid of offending either side.
And so Matthew McConaughey has demonstrated that either he truly doesn’t understand a lick about American politics, or he’s too afraid of damaging his film career by taking real political positions that might cost him a chunk of his audience. In any case, while it’s easy to beat up on McConaughey for his gibberish political rhetoric, at least he’s doing the right thing by not running. This now clears a viable path for Beto O’Rourke to defeat the troubled Greg Abbott in Texas in 2022, if people are willing to put in the voter registration and outreach work required to put Beto over the top.
