In lobbing an admitted grenade into the current American political discourse, Reacher star Alan Ritchson has revealed that not only does he believe that Donald Trump is “a rapist and a con man”, but also that he finds the Christian Right’s support of the politician to be downright “unreal”.
Ritchson, who readers may also recognize as having portrayed Smallville‘s incarnation of Aquaman and Titans‘ take on Hank “Hawk” Hall, offered his opinion of the former US President during a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Chris Gardner.
Amidst a lengthy-conversation ranging from his time filming the live-action adaptation of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and his upcoming role in Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Ritchson was eventually asked by Gardner if he could elaborate on his own Christian faith, to which the actor asserted, “I’m a Christian quite simply because of what Jesus calls us to do. Love other people until death.”
“It doesn’t mean we’re all to be hung on a cross, but how can I suffer for you?” explained the Reacher star. “That is a beautiful thing.”
Further elaborating on his religious beliefs, Ritchson then opined that “Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe. It is so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do.”
To this end, the actor then took aim at the ever-rising level of support the former US President has consistently held and continues to hold among Christians, lamenting, “Trump is a rapist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to be treat him like he’s their poster child and it’s unreal.”
“I don’t understand it,” he added.
Slightly deviating from the topic of religious political theory, Ritchson was then pressed as to his thoughts on the Catholic Church, particularly given that his mother still remains a member of the organization.
“It’s worth saying that the atrocities that are happening in the church that are being actively covered up, even to this day with people not being held accountable, is repulsive,” said the actor, his demeanor while answering reportedly making it clear that he held no good will towards the church. “I can’t for one second support the Catholic Church while there are still cardinals, bishops and priests being passed around with known pedophilic tendencies.”
Notably, this is not the first time Ritchson has thrown his hat into the ring of American politics.
In November 2022, the actor announced that he would be deleting his personal Twitter account in protest of what he believed was Elon Musk’s active allowance of midterm election manipulation on the platform.
Explaining his decision in a video posted to his Instagram account, Ritchson asserted, “There was a king who loved wine and generously wanted to lavish upon the good citizens of his kingdom his love of wine and so he invited all the villagers far and wide from the countryside to his castle for a feast.”
“And so the banquet hall was filled on feast day with friends and strangers alike,” Ritchson continued. “Everybody eagerly awaiting to taste the king’s prized wine. As the king asked the good citizens to have a seat around the banquet hall table, he began to pour wine, but he poisoned a few glasses along the way. Some of the citizenry noticed this and asked the king why he was poisoning the cups. And he said, ‘This is essential that everybody enjoy the wine as is whether its poison or not.’ And, of course, as you can imagine his kingdom lost a few citizens that day.”
“This is who Elon Musk is as a free speech absolutist,” he then revealed of the reason behind his telling of the above story. “Knowing that some of the cups are going to be poisoned and insisting that we all partake in this feast together anyway will not bode well for all us.”
“There must be some intolerance for the poisoned cups among us,” he asserted. “We cannot be tolerant of everything. That’s the tolerance paradox. It requires us to be intolerant of the intolerant.”
“As a free speech absolutist Elon Musk believes that all speech whether it’s hate speech or misinformation, something that he has a pension for, should proliferate his site,” the actor continued. “He relied on the Santa Monica Observer, a propaganda site with low credibility rating by the MBFC, the Media Bias and Fact Check Organization. They rate it low credibility for poor sourcing, fake news, lack of ownership transparency, and often they are an impostor site. The owner of the site SMMC LLC appears to be inactive. So there is really no way to know who is running or operating the site and that lack of transparency is a major issue for a newspaper, an online newspaper trying to claim some kind of journalistic integrity.”
“Elon has crippled the midterms,” the actor further argued. “So this is politically motivated. The tools that his employees were using to use content moderation and policy enforcement tools that would manage hate speech and misinformation. So crippling that and obviously relying on sources like the Santa Monica Observer makes Twitter a hot bed for misinformation.”
“We’ve seen how cancerous and detrimental that can be to our society,” said Ritchson.” Very dangerous.”
Drawing his lengthy video to a close, the former Aquaman actor asserted, “And then lastly, there are security issues involved with selling the verification mark, the blue check mark to everybody.”
“Already I live in a world where many people are cons or frauds and they are using my identity to seek people’s affection or their money or whatever the scam is,” he told the public. “There are at any one time dozens or hundreds of people approaching fans as if they are me or my management team and ultimately seeking something nefarious from that interaction.”
“And it’s difficult for people to suss out who they are talking to even with verification on Twitter and Instagram,” said Ritchson. “When those imposter identities can buy the blue check mark, it’s going to be infinitely harder for people to understand who they’re dealing with. It is a security concern for people like myself.”
“I, as much as anybody want fairness,” he ultimately declared. “I want to live in a world where everybody is a valued customer or VIP, or has a blue checkmark, but there are — when it comes to this with the anonymity that is prevalent in the online community, this is a danger to people like myself and to those who would be on the receiving end of some scam or some nefarious interaction.”
“For that and several other reasons,” he concluded, “I’m deleting my Twitter and I would courage you too as well.”
