Matthew McConaughey Calls Out Extremists in Scorching Op-Ed: ‘High Time We Take the Megaphone Back’ from Those Manufacturing ‘False Fractures Among Us’

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Matthew McConaughey detailed his experience helping to push bipartisan gun legislation in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, with the actor revealing the process made him lose some “reverence” for the way the government operates.

In a Tuesday essay for Esquire, McConaughey recalled a flood of messages in May after others discovered before him that a school shooting had occurred in the town the actor grew up in. The Interstellar star and his wife immediately flew to Uvalde and spoke to numerous families who had lost children in the shooting.

McConaughey was soon on a flight to Washington D.C. Many Americans saw the June press conference at the White House where he pushed for gun and mental health legislation. He also shared the stories of a number of victims.

McConaughey said his time in Washington D.C. meeting with lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle led him to believe the “extremists” in both parties need to be removed for any reasonable debates to happen.

i hope i told it well https://t.co/Zm8bV9JUPI @esquire pic.twitter.com/AoF3zq2ztO

— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) October 11, 2022

In his essay, the actor wrote he planned on meeting with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) when he arrived in D.C., but the trip became much bigger as he hosted a get together for Republicans and Democrats and pushed for gun legislation in private exchanges.

“I arrived in Washington with such a reverence for our government and those who run it. While I’m not going to say that I lost that reverence, I did see the most powerful legislators in America playing an implicit political game, one they seemed to be handcuffed to, even systematically imprisoned by, as if it were the price of entry,” he wrote.

McConaughey did not name any specific politicians who were hesitant to talk to him about the issue, but did say a number mentioned it being an election year as a reason they could not support legislation on a hot topic issue like guns.

“Hard to be in the make-a-difference business if you’re only in the reelection business,” McConaughey noted, later adding that both major political parties have become “little more than counterpunchers,” more willing to react and attack than act.

McConaughey made a call in his essay for Americans to take the “megaphone” away from each party’s fringe element to ensure bipartisan action, like the gun control bill pushed through after Uvalde.

“It’s high time we take the megaphone back from the extremists who’ve been manufacturing these false fractures among us,” he wrote. “They’ve been selling us soft porn at the pep rally for too long.”

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