Matthew McConaughey Drops a Patriotic Message to ‘Unite’ America Amid Potential Political Run

Matthew McConaughey is working to “unite” America. On Sunday, the actor, 51, shared an Independence Day speech to social media calling on his fellow Americans to support “our collective responsibilities” while likening the issues the country is currently facing as the U.S. “basically going through puberty.” The message of unity spurred further speculation of a possible Texas gubernatorial run.

Shared to both Instagram and Twitter, the more than two-minute long video began with McConaughey wishing a “happy birthday” to America. He went on to acknowledge that as people across the country “celebrate our birth as a nation today that kick-started our revolution to gain our sovereignty,” the past year’s “trip around the sun was also another head-scratcher.” He encouraged Americans to remember that the U.S. is still young, explaining that “we are basically going through puberty in comparison to other countries timeline, and we’re going to go through growing pains, we are going through growing pains.” McConaughey, however, said “this is not an excuse to say this is just a reality,” stating that we, as Americans, need to “keep learning, we got to keep maturing, we gotta keep striving, we gotta keep climbing, we gotta keep building.”

The actor, who has been teasing a possible political career for months now, went on to state his belief that “we’re at a place where our individual pursuits and desires need to be appreciative and supportive of our collective responsibilities as Americans… hence the ‘United States of America.’” He said, “we’re all in this together and if you don’t purchase that, move on, go somewhere else.” He encouraged people to take a moment to “to reflect a minute, take a little bit of inventory on where we’ve come from, where we are, and how and where we want to go from here” as they celebrated the Fourth of July.

“On the way to being the best we can be, now what if that was the song that each of us said, ‘I can’t not sing that song,’” he said. “I want to be a little bit better, let’s be on the way to being the best we can be, let’s be on the way to making that a song we can’t not sing. Why? Because it’s who we are, it’s who we gotta be and again, the alternative sucks.”

For many, the message took on a campaign-like tone. In recent months, the actor has been toying a run for Texas governor. In May, he told AARP that he is looking to “step into some sort of leadership position.” Although he has not declared his candidacy in the 2022 Texas gubernatorial race against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, polls have put him with a 38% favorability rating to Abbott’s 39%.