Last Sunday, the eve of early voting in Texas, the actor Matthew McConaughey posted a six-minute video urging, imploring Americans to stop treating a vote for an independent as a wasted one. He was not, he stressed in his thespianic soliloquy, endorsing a candidate or a party. Simply “fairness and reality.” But many Democrats thought it was unfair and told McConaughey to get real.
San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones called the video a waste of time and said vote Democrat across the board. Hillary Clinton, on her new podcast, High Stakes, pronounced it “really unfortunate.” A bit like her own 2016. Beneath McConaughey’s cowboy-philosopher cadence was a real argument, sharp in places and shaky in others.
In this latest edition of Dissected, Newsweek takes the scalpel to McConaughey’s declaration of independence. Well, a great question for our times is: how’s that unwasted vote been working out for you? Yeah...” How many independents are getting elected?
Because it sure does look like a lot of wasted votes. But more notably, that “right now” is carrying a lot of weight. I am here endorsing two things: fairness and reality.” Since when have fairness and reality ever mattered in politics?
Only, the Constitution that followed was a massive exercise in compromise. In fact, the Senate, where he’d like to seat a few independents, exists because of something literally called the Great Compromise. House seats were effectively decided in party primaries by just 7 percent of eligible voters.
Seven percent.” To be fair, it checks out. It’s the election-reform group Unite America’s figure, almost word for word. Let’s hope McConaughey is using his vote.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
