Tom Hanks Says We Should ‘Take To The Ramparts’ Against Trump

Tom Hanks is on a junket for his new film The Post, about the publication of The Pentagon Papers, which were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg (played by Matthew Rhys). Despite being set in the early 70’s, it’s a timely film. After the Obama administration’s attacks on the whistleblowers who followed in Ellsberg’s footsteps, like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, current president Donald Trump has turned his ire to journalists like those portrayed in Hanks’s film about the Washington Post employees who published “The Pentagon Papers.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hanks was asked if he would attend a screening of The Post at the White House if he was invited.

That’s an interesting question. I don’t think I would. Because I think that at some point — look, I didn’t think things were going to be this way last November. I would not have been able to imagine that we would be living in a country where neo-Nazis are doing torchlight parades in Charlottesville [Va.] and jokes about Pocahontas are being made in front of the Navajo code talkers. And individually we have to decide when we take to the ramparts. You don’t take to the ramparts necessarily right away, but you do have to start weighing things. You may think: “You know what? I think now is the time.” This is the moment where, in some ways, our personal choices are going to have to reflect our opinions. We have to start voting, actually, before the election. So, I would probably vote not to go.

Now, Hanks makes some good points. Trump’s hostility to the press is only matched by most other presidents, but he’s really open about it where most presidents undermine the free press behind the scenes. Still, the question is moot because can you imagine Donald Trump wanting to watch a movie where the protagonists are all journalists? It’s like asking someone if they’d attend an NAACP screening of Birth of a Nation or if Adam Sandler would go to a MENSA screening of Jack and Jill.