Back in February, Chris Evans — one of the most likeable of the Avengers, which is saying something — made people mad. How? By taking a picture with Ted Cruz. Granted, it wasn’t just a photo with the controversial Senator and failed presidential candidate; Cruz’s daughter Caroline was in between them. But it seemed jarring that the very progressive former Captain America would willingly be within 30 miles of Cruz, let alone document it for posterity.
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1227683706875371521
The incident, of course, was mostly forgotten, particularly as, well, other, more important matters took up our collective brain space. But half a year later, while chatting on The Daily Show, the actor opened up about it and attempted to explain his reasoning.
He had a couple excuses. “In that circumstance, it was a child,” Evans said, addressing Cruz’s daughter. “I’ll always take a picture with a kid.”
But that wasn’t all. Evans had also started a utopian (or maybe simply overly ambitious) political project called A Talking Point, which is described as a way to “create a bipartisan channel of communication and connectivity between Americans and their elected officials.” Naturally he’d wind up face-to-face with one of the GOP’s most prominent members. So he had another, deeper reason for the Cruz picture:
“[I]n general, just even sitting down with certain politicians ― there are certain people on the extremes of both parties who, there’s no wiggle room for that. And again, what I would argue is, look, if this person wasn’t in power, if this person wasn’t writing bills that affected your life, fine, we can shun them. You know what I mean? We can scream louder than them. But we can’t pretend they don’t have some sort of say, some sort of impact.”
In other words, he meant well. He even thinks it’s lofty to converse with someone with whom he, and many of his fans, vehemently disagree about, well, just about everything. Evans said he finds it “far more pernicious to become stubborn and retreat to your corner” instead of having a conversation, attempting to find “landscape of competing ideas,” as he puts it. “Because I think the other way just becomes cyclical, and everyone spirals, and no one listens, and I don’t think you move the ball down the field as effectively as you would if you say: OK, let’s just, you know … out-talk me.”
In any case, best of luck to Evans as he tries to do A Talking Point during what may be the most combative election season in recorded history!
You can watch the full interview in the video above. The Cruz business begins around the 5:43 mark.
(Via Huffington Post)