Obama and ‘Star Trek’

last updated 8 January 2015

Gene Roddenberry’s original “Star Trek” is a “relic of its time”—the Cold War, NASA, an abiding faith in diplomacy, said Dana Stevens in Slate. But “in a weird way,” its “cheerfully square naiveté” makes J.J. Abrams’ new Trek film the perfect first “blockbuster for the Obama age.” The president has made being smart and idealistic cool again—you can almost see him “on the bridge in a blue shirt and pointy ears.”

Exactly—Obama is Spock, said Jeff Greenwald in Salon. The half-Vulcan, half-human Spock and his fellow “mixed-race icon” Obama both embody logic over emotion, rational thought over “blind faith,” superhuman composure, and an outsider’s sense of perspective on problems. And Trekkies will certainly see parallels in Obama’s “sometimes audacious diplomacy.”

The liberal media aren’t satisfied portraying Obama as the smartest guy on the planet, said Warner Todd Huston in News Busters. Now we’re supposed to believe that, like Spock, he’s the most brilliant and “logical” being in the universe. Naturally, when an outlet like Newsweek likens a conservative to a Trek character, they end up portraying somebody like Rush Limbaugh as a “villainous” Klingon aggressor.