Two years ago, when a trailer dropped for
Star Trek: Discovery, we finally got a look at what the first Trek show in over a decade
would be: a stylized, intense, grittier-than-usual, space-faring adventure with a cinematic feel
common to the era of Peak TV and, of course, being Star Trek, it had a diverse cast. The reaction from the darkest edges of the
political far right was that of outrage and immediate condemnation. For all of the right's talk of left-wing “snowflakes”
being offended at the slightest infraction, nobody launches into frothing, hateful convulsions
like a right-winger whose pet obsession is the myth of “white genocide.” It's a paranoid conspiracy theory among the
far right that denounces immigration and racial integration as tools to eliminate white people. It's also – apparently – been appropriated
for discourse about popular media having diverse casts as a means of eliminating white people,
particularly white men, from representation in media. The right spewed their venom again when the
first episode debuted. The Klingons spoke of keeping their species
pure and fighting against the comparatively “diverse” Federation. Star Trek has always commented on the times,
and the Klingons' desire to “remain pure” is a reflection on the rise of white supremacy
and far right politics that have ramped up under the Trump administration. This is not idle speculation. One of the executive producers said that Trump's
2016 campaign was “front and center” in their minds when developing the series, and
Jason Isaacs, who played Captain Lorca, went even further, adding "We're living in monstrous
times, let's not dance around it. Hideous, divisive times, when all sorts of
stuff we thought was long buried is coming to the surface, and being encouraged by the
most powerful people on the planet. We're living in disgusting times." That's not say to no one on the left can be
racist or sexist – that would be absurd. Of course an individual who is aligned with
political left could be either of those things, but the ideology of the left is anti-racist
and anti-sexist whereas the ideology of the right couches its racism and sexism in code
words and dog whistles like “traditional values” and “law and order” – but
is still nonetheless racist and sexist. Those espousing these racist and sexist beliefs
in reaction to Star Trek: Discovery used the terminology of the right in more explicit
terms. Modern canards like diversity or feminism
as a “cancer” and other fear-mongering, hyperbolic verbiage that appeals to the aggressive,
the angry and almost always from white men who can't see past their own entitlement. When one is accustomed to privilege, equality
can feel like oppression. The backlash was immense, prompting Discovery
actor Jason Isaacs to tell racist Star Trek fans that they can go fuck themselves. Right-wing Star Trek fans were angry that
Trek had been “taken away from them” by the “radical left” or the “SJW's”
or whoever their boogeyman is this week. And everyone else...kinda laughed? Because Star Trek has always been diverse,
at least by the standards of its time. It's always been steeped in left-wing talking
points and ideology. Everyone balked at this and said that these
right-wingers, these Trump supporters, these, well, flat-out racists could not be “real”
Star Trek fans. Because how could Star Trek appeal to the
political right in the first place? No, seriously, we need to answer that, and
the answer might be surprising. What people consider “the left” can be
fluid, especially over time, but generally speaking, the left supports social and economic
equality and is often in opposition to hierarchies that create disparities contrary to these
goals. “The Left” should not be confused with
“liberalism,” which is a fairly centrist political position in most of the world. In America, liberalism is considered the left
only because it is in opposition to conservatism, which is to its political right. Liberalism is more progressive than conservatism,
but liberalism still supports capitalism. Both the narrative and philosophy of Star
Trek do not support capitalism, which is why it is often considered a show for leftists. Star Trek is always a little vague as to how
the economy of the future works. This is deliberate because the intricacies
of economics do not make for exciting television and because with so many writers over so many
decades, keeping track of such things would be a headache. Also, not everyone involved in Star Trek over
its history has had the same politics as Gene Roddenberry. Producer Rick Berman once said "What Gene
wanted me to do was basically carry the ball for him, and to try to maintain his vision. He saw that I had respect for his vision--not
because it's my vision. I don't believe the 24th Century is going
to be like Gene Roddenberry believed it to be, that people will be free from poverty
and greed. But if you're going to write and produce for
'Star Trek,' you've got to buy into that." Earth is free from poverty because it rejected
the current economic system. What was put in its place? All we can do is guess based on the evidence,
and since Trek is fictional and we're not excavating a real society, no actual conclusion
can be reached because no actual conclusion was ever written. You can't treat fiction the way you would
the real world. However, we also can't discuss why Trek appeals
to leftists without examining its economic system in as much detail as we can, so here
are some semi-reasonable guesses based on hundreds of episodes of Star Trek and its
movies. The Federation economy decouples labor from
reward. This concept frightens capitalists and capitalist
apologists because they believe that without the coupling of labor and reward, people will
stop working and society will suddenly grind to a halt and that capitalism, which is a
scarcity-based system, is still preferable to the incredible scarcity this would create. However, with the rise of automation, the
potential for a post-scarcity society may be possible. We already have a surplus of food, for example,
we simply do not distribute it to the whole world. It's not a matter of scarcity, it's a matter
of organization. In the future, a small number of humans or
other aliens living among humans could produce all the food, energy and other requirements. Some people would choose to do this, and some
people would choose other things. This might seem utopian – Star Trek is often
labeled this, sometimes as a bludgeon – but this does not exactly seem like simple wishful
thinking given our current trends. In Star Trek, these advances are helped along
by visiting aliens – the Vulcans – but the real world humanity could realistically
become self-sufficient in such a way that capitalism and even labor as we know it need
not exist. That's not to say that this will happen, only
that it could happen, and Star Trek shows us a future in which it does happen. Star Trek shows people to suddenly be absolutely
in love with their humanity and more willing to lend a helping hand than in the real world
present. People call Trek's vision of how humanity
behaves to be utopianl, but the removal of hierarchical systems like capitalism would
change the way we see each other: no longer in competition. The removal of economic competition among
ourselves would remove alienation, the estrangement of people from their own lives due to living
under stratified social and economic classes. The elimination of our alienation under capitalism
could have the side-effect of greater harmony related to gender and race. This is because those classifications are
often coupled with labor and economy. Imagine never having to worry about money
– never having “economic anxiety” that is so often coupled with racism. Nobody could say “They're coming from another
country to take our jobs!” because labor as we know it would not exist, thus reducing
the “othering” of different people. The Federation, a coalition of various species,
works because these species are not competing with each other. Gender relations are often strained due to
labor and economy as well. People still argue about the “gender gap”
in wages, and “women in the workforce” as a boogeyman phrase even today. Sexual harassment in the workplace that goes
unnoticed because women are sometimes too afraid of losing their jobs to speak up, causing
men to not realize how prevalent sexual harassment actually is. In a society where nobody needs to worry about
losing their job, harassment would be better enforced and reduced. Eliminating competition will not eliminate
all racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., but as Sisko once said about actually
caring about people, it would be a start. Bigotry has not completely been eliminated
in Star Trek. Captain Kirk admonishes one of his men about
his prejudice in the original series episode, Balance of Terror. In the Next Generation episode The Drumhead,
Captain Picard defends one of his men who is on trial at least in part due to his having
Romulan ancestry. Worf is occasionally sexist, such as in the
episode The Outcast, and so on. But progress has been made, and a lot of that
is due to completely changing the economic system, thus eliminating our most alienating
hierarchy. In the TNG episode, The Neutral Zone, Captain
Picard tells someone from the past "People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation
of 'things.' We have eliminated hunger, want, the need
for possessions." How this is done is not explained in great
detail, but based on how our future might actually unfold, we can guess that it has
something to do with the loss of capitalism At this point, we enter a guessing game – mere
speculation – on how the Federation functions economically. In Star Trek: First Contact, Picard tells
Lily Sloan that there is no money in the future. In Star Trek IV, a time traveling Kirk tells
Spock that the people of the 20th century are still using money, suggesting that the
Federation does not. In various episodes, Starfleet officers “pay”
their bills with Federation credits. Based on the fact that there is no economic
hierarchy, one assumes that everyone receives the same amount of credits at the same intervals,
but this is never explicitly stated. Also, based on the fact that there is no poverty,
one assumes that everyone receives Federation credits regardless of employment status. There are many ways this system is contradicted
over the course of the series and movies. There is a “Bolian Bank” even though the
Bolians are members of the Federation, for example. The Federation also trades with other governments,
which means that Federation “credits,” whatever they are, must have some worth to
people outside the Federation. The Ferengi primarily use latinum as their
currency, but Quark routinely accepts Federation credits from Starfleet officers. The fact that the details are not explained
does not invalidate a future that Star Trek proposes. It's more a matter of narrative convenience
and different writers. Some writers will present a future that is
deeply regressive, and some writers will have Rom quote Karl Marx. Star Trek more explicitly rejects capitalism
through its introduction of the Ferengi as antagonists in The Next Generation and various
other anti-capitalist and anti-disparity statements throughout the franchise. Regardless of what we call the economic system
of the Federation, it is definitely something to the left of what we have now and therefore
appealing to leftists. Sci-fi futures more often than not still showcase
capitalism as its economy, an inescapable economic system even in the distant future. There are a lot of other aspects to Trek that
appeal to leftists as well. Trek was “woke” before “woke” became
a punchline. The Original Series attempted to tackle racism
during the civil rights era, perhaps clumsily but nobody ever said Trek needed to be subtle. So many episodes across all series are like
this. Trek attacks social issues with the bluntness
of a hammer, everything from racism to homophobia to the AIDS epidemic. For all of Star Trek's leftist ideology, it
has also attracted right-wingers and reactionaries among its fanbase. What could be so appealing about Star Trek
to these people? Well, part of that could simply be that Star
Trek is so ubiquitous that everyone has seen some of it and also that it's so well-made
(sometimes) that people love it across political lines. But there is something more here. Something that might directly appeal to the
political right. Starfleet is often euphemistically called
the “exploratory wing” of the United Federation of Planets or the “trade organization”
or a number of other cop-outs to what it is: the military. That's not to say that it's only military. It escorts ambassadors on diplomatic missions,
it negotiates with other planets, it does...a lot for the Federation. But it is also the military. When the Borg strikes, the Federation sends
Starfleet to fight its war. Ditto for the Dominion and every other conflict
that the Federation finds itself in. Starfleet is many things, but one of those
things is the military. Anti-war fans of Star Trek don't always want
to acknowledge this, but the text of the series and films are right there. They even have naval ranks and often speak
in terms of military hierarchies. Star Trek tries to paint Starfleet as inherently
benevolent and therefore not what we would call a “military,” except for all the
times when it functions as a military and even outright is called just that. In the 2009 Star Trek movie, Captain Pike
called it a “peacekeeping and humanitarian armada” instead of the word “military,”
but no matter how hard Star Trek tries to call Starfleet something else, it is what
it is. If one wishes to call Starfleet a different
term while still acknowledging that Starfleet fights the Federation's wars, then such a
term is a matter of semantics only and therefore unhelpful in classifying what Starfleet actually
does. One political position common the right is
that of having a strong national military force to both “defend” its borders but
also as a means of interventionism. Protecting the nation's “interests,” often
meaning wealth. In Star Trek, the Federation may not care
about wealth, but that's a detail that the right would probably ignore or not care about
when presented with this awesome, galaxy-sized military force. Starfleet is not only a powerful military
due to its size but also due to how it functions and how much power it has consolidated under
its banner. In the real world, intelligence agencies within
a country are sometimes divided into military and civilian. America, for example, has the Military Intelligence
Corps, which is a branch of the United States Army. America has also the Central Intelligence
Agency, which is a civilian organization. The CIA has performed a great number of paramilitary
operations over the years, but there is still some separation of power here. Starfleet, among other things, is the military
for the Federation, but it is also the intelligence organization for the Federation. Starfleet Intelligence is the only intelligence
organization for the Federation. There is no official civilian intelligence
agency. Section 31 is officially part of Starfleet
Intelligence in Discovery but a rogue organization in other series. It's never both official and civilian. It's always one or the other. This means that Starfleet has untold autonomy
that goes beyond even the wildest dreams of the most hawkish military fetishist. But that's not all. Leftist ideology seeks to reduce hierarchies
and to create something resembling a horizontal leadership. In Star Trek, the Federation's government
may be more left-wing in its economy and tolerance of other people, but it is more right-wing
in its structure. The legislature of the Federation called the
Federation Council is unicameral, not bicameral like in America, and it only seems to contain
a few dozen representatives. That's a few dozen people dictating law for
over one hundred and fifty worlds and trillions of people. The Federation President is democratically
elected but is also given powers beyond that of most representative republics. The Federation President serves as both the
head of state and head of government, chief executive officer, the individual who determines
most of the Federation's foreign policy and economy in a moneyless system somehow, and
most importantly, serves as supreme commander of the Federation's military force: Starfleet. And if the Federation President has final
say in Starfleet, then said President is also head of Intelligence for much of the galaxy. Starfleet has consolidated both military and
intelligence powers, and the President presides over all of it. There is a Federation Supreme Court, but it
is rarely shown to act against the wishes of the president or legislature. This does not mean that Gene Roddenberry and
later Rick Berman intended to show a psuedo-authoritarian space organization as the best possible outcome
for Earth. Starfleet and the Federation are what they
are for narrative convenience. A series about people living in peace on Earth
is not exciting, so Star Trek is about Starfleet. And since the shows are about Starfleet, it
is presented as doing a bit of everything. Yet, it's possible that this focus on an all-powerful
military being the best arbiters of justice throughout the cosmos may be at least one
reason why so many right-wingers love this otherwise left-leaning sci-fi franchise. You could argue that Starfleet is benevolent,
and it mostly is, but that is how the right always sees its military no matter what it
does: as a force for good. That's why Starfleet is appealing to them. It's the fictional justification for their
real world military. This does not, however, invalidate Star Trek
as a leftist narrative. In addition to everything already mentioned,
Star Trek is explicitly anti-fascist, as evidenced by so many episodes in which Starfleet fights
the Nazis or stand-ins for Nazi ideology. It is also anti-interventionist, as evidenced
by the admittedly inconsistent prime directive. Star Trek does not provide a blueprint for
how we achieve its future because there are no Vulcans coming to save us. We have to figure that out for ourselves.
I can never pass up a chance to quote David Graeber on this:
To me, Roddenberry's Trek, which I think is just TOS to TNG, has always been this beautiful chimera of leftist chutzpah and silly, clumsy camp – an amalgam of fantastic ambitions and naive assumptions. There's something wonderful about a child of the Great Depression trying to imagine Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, and all the contradictions that come spilling out of it. I don't think there's any other show, as good as it is flawed, that I've enjoyed as much both sincerely and ironically.
I never understand why you can be traditionalist/far right and be into Star Trek despite Star Trek have obviously leftist messaging.