People Are Pissed That Captain America ‘Hung Out’ With This Far-Right Texas Politician
Chris Evans is best known as Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but many fans of his comic book hero were immensely disappointed to discover the actor recently hung out with Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a far-right politician with peripheral ties to white supremacist ideology. The Chris Evans Dan Crenshaw meetup was shared with the public via photos on social media.
The ‘hangout session’ at issue between Chris Evans and Dan Crenshaw took place in Washington, D.C., when the actor swung through to meet with several politicians and veterans. Among the other politicians Evans met with include Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu and Republicans like Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
From photos posted to the actor’s social media, it appears he and Dan Crenshaw (who, while on active duty in Iraq, lost an eye) had a laugh about the House Representative’s glass eye. On the day of the pair’s meeting, Crenshaw was wearing a glass eye bearing the Captain America symbol.
The photo below is from the Chris Evans Dan Crenshaw meeting at the U.S. Capitol.
A VERY cool use of vibranium https://t.co/zv5L9hqqTl
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) March 9, 2019
It’s rather apparent that Chris Evans was intentionally taking efforts to “reach across the aisle” by meeting with Republican lawmakers despite his being vocally liberal and openly critical of Donald Trump and his right-wing policies. But of all people to appear “chummy” with, Crenshaw is a particularly unfortunate choice.
If you’ve heard Crenshaw’s name before, it’s most likely due to an incident from last November in which Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson joked about Crenshaw’s eyepatch, only to later apologize when the joke was received as insensitive. Then the sketch comedy show had Crenshaw appear alongside Davidson and allowed him to deliver “an appeal for unity to help heal the divisions in America today” (hilarious considering Crenshaw’s nothing-short-of-total support for Donald Trump, lead divider of the American public).
Even if you have heard his name, you may not be aware of why liberals, women and LGBTQ people consider Rep. Dan Crenshaw to be a particularly nasty piece of work.
For starters, this freshman Texas Congressman is against women’s reproductive rights, is a hardline supporter of the 2nd Amendment and assault rifles and fully supports the logical fallacy that is Trump’s proposed border wall. In fact, Crenshaw’s election platform is pretty much identical to Donald Trump‘s.
In one interview, Crenshaw said “[making] conservatism cool and exciting again” should be the Republican party’s foremost goal, and he thinks he’s the guy to do it.
But the biggest reason Crenshaw has received considerable backlash from the liberal side of the aisle involves a Facebook page that consistently promoted ‘fake news’ conspiracy theories along with racist posts and memes. Despite telling Newsweek that he “never actively managed or interacted with that page,” Crenshaw, along with four other Republican Congressional candidates, was an “administrator” of the page and posted several campaign videos there.
In addition to pushing the ridiculous “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, that Facebook page promoted the Nazi rally in Charlottesville that left one person, Heather Heyer, dead.
While it’s perhaps commendable that Evans was making efforts to reach across the aisle and meet with conservative lawmakers, there’s also an inherent danger in normalizing the intolerant policies of the Trump administration.
If Captain America were real, I’m pretty sure he’d agree.
