Daily Beast blasted for accusing Matthew McConaughey of 'flirting with alt-right'

The Daily Beast came under fire Thursday after running a hit piece on actor Matthew McConaughey that accused him of "flirting with alt-right darlings," but did not name any actual alt-right figures.

The piece by entertainment reporter Laura Bradley sharply criticized conservative complaints about so-called "cancel culture" while using a headline lumping McConaughey in with a movement associated with White nationalism.

Bradley ripped McConaughey for sitting down with Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson and popular podcaster Joe Rogan in recent weeks to promote his memoir "Greenlights". However, the writer did not identify either figure as "alt-right," a term for far-right, White nationalists, in the story itself.

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Peterson actively rejects identity politics, including the White identity politics practiced by alt-right figures like white supremacist leader Richard Spencer. Rogan has been attacked by liberals for some of his statements on issues like transgenderism, but supported left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for president.

Bradley objected to McConaughey and his interviewers' opinions on, among other things, police reform, cancel culture, and the "illiberal left". McConaughey, who is outspoken about his Christian faith, has also been a subject of left-wing ire for  referring to Trump as "our president" shortly after he took office in 2017 and urging Hollywood liberals to "be constructive with him."

Critics jumped on the liberal outlet for trying to slur the actor.

"This piece is basically, 'Cancel culture doesn't exist but let's cancel Matthew McConaughey just in case," the New York Post's Karol Markowicz wrote.

Bradley added near the end of the lengthy piece she was not advocating to "cancel" McConaughey for the views she found objectionable.

"The issue with 'cancel culture,' to the extent that one even exists, is not that anyone is, to borrow McConaughey’s neologism, 'illegitimizing' what these guys are saying," she wrote. "The Jordan Petersons and Joe Rogans of the world are not, as they so often complain, being persecuted or, as McConaughey put it in his Russell Howard interview, erased. They’re simply peddling the losing ends of arguments that have already occurred countless times—perpetuating a culture war while simultaneously trying to frame themselves as its victims."

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The story is part of a pattern of Daily Beast "entertainment" reporting that attacks celebrities who don't toe the liberal line. The left-wing outlet came under fire in 2019 after publishing an attack on former New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera over his support for Israel, his outspoken evangelical Christian beliefs, and his appointment to President Trump's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. The piece was published the same day Rivera was inducted into the Basebal Hall of Fame.

The Daily Beast also published several articles critical of singer Taylor Swift in the years before she became an outspoken supporter of Democrats, casting her as too quiet on politics and guilty by association with her racist fans. When she endorsed Tenessee Democrats in 2018, the Daily Beast called it a "shock, especially for those who’d interpreted her silence as an endorsement of the alt-right."

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"As a pretty white girl who has written songs that rely heavily on fiddles, Swift undoubtedly counts a healthy handful of Trump supports among her fan base. In fact, the so-called alt-right has crowned Swift as the Aryan prom queen of their burgeoning neo-Nazi movement," reporter Amy Zimmerman wrote in 2017.

McConaughey, known for his Texas twang and catchphrase "all right, all right, all right," has been starring in movies for nearly 30 years. Once known for his work in romantic comedies, he won a Best Actor Oscar for his work in the 2013 film "Dallas Buyers Club".