Nothing escapes the partisan divide — or so it seems. Party affiliation shapes opinions about inflation, clothing brands, and even America's pastime — Major League Baseball.
But actor Matt Damon — who himself has been criticized as a "Hollywood liberal" — says a worldwide aid effort to expand worldwide water access resonates with Democrats and Republicans alike.
Damon, the co-founder of a global water access philanthropy called Water.org, rebuked the notion that liberals tend to be more compassionate than their conservative counterparts. Instead, he said partisans of all stripes can find value in his organization's market-driven solution to a dire global problem.
"This is not a political issue at all," he says. "The left doesn't have a monopoly on compassion."
"This issue is kind of a good one on the right and the left. Programming that we do is very effective and efficient," adds Damon, the co-author along with Water.org co-founder Gary White of a new book entitled "The Worth of Water."
Across the globe, at least 2 billion people use a drinking-water source polluted by feces, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Plus, more than 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries at risk of losing access to clean water, the WHO found.
Water.org, a nonprofit that makes small loans that allow people in developing countries to access and provide clean water, has reached 33 million people since its founding in 2009 and 6.6 million people last year, according to the organization's website.
Growing up in left-leaning Cambridge, Massachusetts, Damon drew inspiration from his mother, who taught at nearby Lesley University and regularly traveled on aid trips to Central America.
"You know when people complain about the liberal bias of academia, and they paint some ludicrous picture of a kind of super-bookish hippie commune?" wrote Damon in his book. "Yeah, I grew up there."
"When people call me a Hollywood liberal, part of me wants to fight back — and part of me just wants to say, 'Well, Cambridge, not Hollywood,'" he wrote.
But he refuted depictions that his advocacy represents his political leanings, noting that Americans across the political spectrum appreciate effective programs.
"There have been these polls over the years, they say, 'What do Americans of all stripes respond to more than anything?'" Damon says. Americans favor "ideas that work."
It was unclear to which poll numbers Damon was referring to but a Siena College survey last year found that while partisanship deeply divides Americans, they share values like "equality" and "progress."
"So if you have an idea that works, it doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum," Damon says. "An American person will tend to be all for that."
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