Interviewer Ana Marie Cox asked the senator about his love for all things “Star Trek” and whether he preferred Capt. James T. Kirk from the original “Star Trek” series or Capt. Jean-Luc Picard from “Star Trek: The Next Generation“. He knows enough to have a conversation about “Star Trek“, as he did in a Q&A with The New York Times Magazine that was published Thursday and led to a unusual assertion about the political leanings of the franchise’s most famous character.
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That didn’t sit well with a lot of Trek fans – not least of whom was Captain Kirk himself, aka Cruz’ fellow Canadian, William Shatner.
When Cox asked Cruz if he was attracted to anti-heroes, citing his Obamacare filibuster in which he impersonated Darth Vader, Cruz responded, “I was always a Han Solo guy”.
“Let me do a little psychoanalysis”, Cruz said.
Cruz added that Kirk was “working class” and a “passionate fighter for justice”, whereas Picard was an “aristocrat” and “cerebral philosopher”, which is why – to his mind – “it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat”. To be effective, you need both heart and mind.
“So @WilliamShatner doesn’t grasp that one of Star Trek’s most interesting elements was its philosophical side, which bleeds into politics”, Twitter user Bob Israel said.
No, sir. First of all, a better argument would be to say that Roddenberry inverted the dynamic Kirk had with Spock in TOS to serve as the blueprint for Picard’s relationship with Riker in TNG.
Do you have a suspicion about whether Kirk would be a Democrat or a Republican? Besides, Joss Whedon, who has praised socialism, created the most red state, redneck character in all of science fiction in the person of Captain Mal Reynolds.
Star Trek wasn’t political.
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So Captain Kirk was what?
