Stephen Miller Lacks The Humanity To Understand ‘Star Trek’
He’s only interested in the next battlefield.
Stephen Miller remains an unabashed, unrepentant racist who is also incredibly stupid. The Trump administration is currently waging war on non-MAGA America, so you’d think that Miller wouldn’t have time to criticize TV programs like a basement-dwelling Reddit user. However, propaganda is a key part of the Great Value Brand Goebbel’s job description. He’s just terrible at it.
Some loser posted a clip from the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy that featured three women talking to each other. One of them was Holly Hunter, who plays a Starfleet captain more than 30 years after Kate Mulgrew broke that glass ceiling. The second one is Black underneath all the alien makeup, and the third probably weighs more than 100 pounds. What kind of future is this for incels?
Miller responded, in his usual sturm und drang, “Tragic. But it’s not too late for @paramountplus to save the franchise. Step 1: Reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control.”
William Shatner is still technically alive but almost 95 years old. He’s earned his retirement. I’m a Gen-X Star Trek fan who clearly remembers the complaints that Star Trek: The Next Generation was too namby pamby liberal. The captain was French with an English accent who didn’t even wear an obvious toupee. There was too much diplomacy and not enough butt kicking. Miller, who is very stupid, probably believes the false narrative that Shatner’s Captain Kirk was Dirty Harry in space — beating up Romulans rather than talking to them and having sex with different hot alien women each week. Maybe Miller just watches the horrible “Turnabout Intruder” on an endless loop. That wouldn’t surprise me. Yes, Star Trek didn’t have the best track record regarding gender, but the show’s flaws were not what defined it. Star Trek’s mission was always openly progressive, both socially and politically.
As YouTuber Steve Shives observed, the Star Trek episode “Errand of Mercy” takes a progressive and quite provocative stance on warfare during the height of the Cold War: The Federation and the Klingons are obvious stand-ins for the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but they’re presented as more alike than truly different. The episode ends with the Federation and the Klingons forced to resolve their differences through non-violent means. This was hardly a conservative position in 1967. If aired today, even many self-proclaimed liberals might criticize “Errand of Mercy” as too explicit a commentary on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Watch below.)
“Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” from Star Trek’s third season aired in 1969 and is more overtly “woke” than anything on Starfleet Academy. This scene practically screams its message, which seems shockingly prescient. (Watch below.)
LOKAI: Benefactors? He’s a liar. He raided our homes, tore us from our families, herded us together like cattle and then sold us as slaves!
BELE: They were savages, Captain. We took them into our hearts, our homes. We educated them.
LOKAI: Yes, just education enough to serve the master race.
BELE: You were the product of our love! And you repaid us with murder.
LOKAI: Why should a slave show mercy to the enslaver?
BELE: Slaves? That was changed thousands of years ago. You were freed.
LOKAI: Freed? Were we free to be men? Free to be husbands and fathers? Free to live our lives in equality and dignity?
BELE: Yes, you were free, if you knew how to use your freedom. You were free enough to slaughter and to burn all the things that had been built.
LOKAI: I tried to break the chains of a hundred million people. My only crime is that I failed. To that I do plead guilty.
BELE: There is an order in things. He asked for utopia in a day. It can’t be done.
LOKAI: Not in a day. And not in ten times ten thousand years by your thinking. To you, we are a loathsome breed who will never be ready. Genocide for my people is the plan for your utopia.
Many critics have dismissed “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” for what they consider a clumsy, obvious racial metaphor. (I personally enjoy the Trek episodes that feel as if they could’ve been written by Rod Serling.) However, I think the episode’s brilliance comes from that inherent absurdity. The Cheron people’s differences are comically superficial and only relevant because of centuries of dogma. If we think this is silly, we should take a hard look at our own reality.
Star Trek condemned not just racism but nationalism and xenophobia. They are all savage impulses of the past that humanity had to outgrow before we could travel the stars. MAGA mistakes brute force for actual power, which Star Trek consistently presented as petty barbarism that can only lead to destruction.
In 1967’s “Mirror, Mirror,” the peaceful Halkans won’t let the Federation mine dilithium from their planet. Kirk attempts to negotiate with them but is willing to accept their final decision. He doesn’t impose his will on Space Greenland.
One of the Halkans tells Kirk, “The council will meditate further, do not be hopeful of any change. Captain, you do have the might to force the crystals from us, of course.”
“But we won’t,” Kirk says. “Consider that.” Indeed. Gene Roddenberry’s idealized future had no room for Stephen Millers. (Watch below.)
Kirk’s noble sentiment is very different from the “might makes right” rhetoric Miller spouted on CNN a couple weeks ago: “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
The other day, Miller argued that Denmark had no right to Greenland because it couldn’t “defend” its sovereignty. Miller sounds like the barbaric version of Kirk from the Mirror Universe.
The Terran Empire from “Mirror, Mirror” reflected what Roddenberry considered humanity’s worst traits: They were aggressive, imperialistic, and lacking any guiding principle other than the accumulation of power. What was once considered over-the-top is now fairly straightforward MAGA.
Jerome Bixby’s script makes clear that “evil” offers no tactical advantage over “good.” When stranded in the Mirror Universe, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty are able to fake their way through for a while. Kirk himself might’ve even started a revolution. But their savage counterparts accomplish little. They are easily found out and imprisoned. (Watch below.)
Spock later tells Kirk, “It was far easier for you as civilized men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilized men.” Even when captured, “Evil” Kirk is incapable of reasoning with Spock, as he can’t comprehend any motivations beyond self-interest and greed.
“What is it that will buy you?” the desperate “Evil” Kirk asks. “Power?” A perplexed Spock simply responds, “Fascinating.”
MAGA has built its current regime on a foundation of bigotry — the demonization of anyone who’s different and targeting of convenient scapegoats. At least Mirror Universe Spock was logical enough to realize that eventually the Terran Empire will fall. Might never makes right, and any “empire” based in brutality and savagery won’t endure.
In 1966’s “Balance of Terror,” the Enterprise discovers that the Federation’s longtime foes the Romulans physically resemble the Vulcans. Barely 25 years after the U.S. government forcibly relocated and incarcerated Americans for the crime of looking like our enemies, Star Trek challenges this prejudice head on. There are no “both sides” here. When Lt. Stiles (Paul Comi) tells Kirk that his ancestors had died in the previous Earth/Romulan war, Kirk stresses: “Their war, Mister Stiles. Not yours. Don’t forget it.” That line had to resonate at a time when Americans would openly express contempt for Japanese people because of the nation’s past actions in World War II.
Later, when Stiles can’t hide his contempt for Spock, Kirk warns him, “Well, here's one thing you can be sure of, Mister. Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the bridge. Do I make myself clear?” (Watch below.)
Pete Hegseth might argue there’s no time to be “politically correct” or “woke” during a war, but Kirk understood that the exact opposite is true. War is the worst time for fear and prejudice. That’s when mutual respect despite our differences is most vital.
Star Trek existed in an idealized utopian future, but it wasn’t simple escapist entertainment. The series frequently sounded alarms about how our current actions might destroy us all. A devastating World War III looms large in Star Trek’s “past” and our future. Redemption is possible but only if we choose it.
The ending of “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” reveals that the Cheron people have destroyed themselves. Their war is over, and there were no winners. Unfortunately, Lokai and Bele still won’t let go of their hatred.
“But their planet’s dead,” Uhura says. “Does it matter now which one’s right?”
“Not to Lokai and Bele,” Spock replies. “All that matters to them is their hate.”
Uhura wonders if “that’ all they ever had,” and a somber Kirk drops the mic: “No, but that’s all they have left.”
We should all consider that final line, especially if we’re committed to our moral correctness. The Stephen Millers of the world might imprison themselves with their hate, but we don’t have to join them in oblivion. On Star Trek, there was always a better path.
Good column. I've seen the two new Starfleet Academy episodes plus the vast majority of the other Star Trek series. Even if we settle our differences within our society we're always are war outside of it. While I (hope to) believe MAGA has more in common with us than differences, as my cross country trips have shown, the propagandized differences are overwhelming the common ground.
Someone should strap Miller in, tape open his eyes, and make him watch all five seasons of Star Trek Discovery, quite possibly the wokest tv show and definitely the wokest Star Trek, ever. We wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore 🤯.