Captain America — a.k.a. Chris Evans — made a trip in February to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., a visit that spawned may tweets and raised eyebrows. Evans, you see, has been vocally critical of the Trump administration and conservative policy ideas for some time. And yet many of the legislators he visited were Republicans.
Now we know why.
Evans has recently unveiled a new website called “A Starting Point,” a place where he says legislators from both parties have the opportunity to answer questions on any policy idea they choose in an effort to provide a place where people (and Evans himself) can go to hear both sides of an issue.
According to CNN, the video was sent to members of Congress from both parties late Friday night, asking them to participate in interviews for the venture, whichis intended to address a political climate of partisanship and distrust.
“Guess the cat’s outta the bag,” Evans tweeted Saturday morning, after CNN first reported on the video’s release.
Guess the cat’s outta the bag 🙂
Thank you to everyone who has already participated!! https://t.co/yj5FrmlWFr
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) April 6, 2019
“Our goal is to create informed, responsible and empathetic citizens who are empowered to further their understanding in the world of politics,” Evans said in a video he shot while visiting The Hill. While there, he and his partners, media entrepreneur Joe Kiani and filmmaker Mark Kassen, met with a dozen senators and representatives. Some of the names on his list included New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D), Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), California Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (R), and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R).
He included snippets of those meetings in the promotional video for his site and, honestly, it’s a compelling watch. The legislators not only appear to be answering questions on policy but on why and how they entered into the political fray in frank, honest conversations.
Civic engagement is an oft-overlooked element of politics and many people don’t realize that a great number of those who make their careers in Washington start out as idealists who truly believe they can provide guidance and help to their constituents and their country. Evans’ video is a good reminder of that.
What’s more, Evans says in the video the goal is to create “a one-stop shop for simple, digestible information from people who know best.”
Love or hate his politics (and many conservatives fall into the latter category with good reason), Evans is doing something his contemporaries in Hollywood only pretend to do: learn a little something about policy before speaking about it.
And Evans’ site gives others the chance to learn, too. Good move, Captain America.
Video below.
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