When IDIC Met the Culture War

There Is no safe space in Politics, even in space.

Note: I get my nerd on with this post. It’s not a religious article, but Christians should take note of what this all means for us and where God is in the midst of all this.

I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Trekkie.

I’ve been a fan of the series since I was a kid. I would watch reruns of the original series every Sunday evening. I remember watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in the theatres in 1982. I was pumped to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation when it debuted in 1987. The first season was terrible, but I didn’t care because, Star Trek.

I loved the world creator Gene Roddenberry created, a future where humanity made it to the other side, dealing with some of its greatest demons, and now was out among the stars, meeting new lifeforms and new civilizations.

Star Trek has always been aspirational, with eye to the future, but more importantly, an eye towards the present, reminding us what the future could be. In the 1960s, this meant showing an integrated crew. Having someone like Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, the communications officer, meant something to a little black kid like me in Michigan circa 1979. From the movies to the many series that came after the original one, Star Trek has always talked about contemporary issues in a way that made you think, even if you didn’t always agree with the conclusions.

Trekkies have never just uncritically accepted everything that has been made. We are sci-fi fans, after all. As I said, the first season of The Next Generation was godawful. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was not great. While I watched it, I wasn’t as big a fan of Voyager. My favorite of all the series was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was a step away from the more optimistic take of the Trek universe. Not every Trek series is for everybody, which I guess is in keeping with the very Vulcan phrase, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations or as most Trekkies would say, IDIC. This belief summed up Star Trek, which I believe upholds classical liberal values like individual rights, tolerance, pluralism, rule of law and dignity.

The concept of IDIC was something I thought most fans of the series believed.

That was until recently.

The newest series in the franchise, Starfleet Academy, debuted this January. I wasn’t sure if I would like the series, but it has grown on me. It’s not perfect, but the stories are engaging and thoughtful. Overall, the series has been divisive. On one level, this shouldn’t be surprising; not everyone is going to like a series. But the response of those who didn’t like the series was meaner, darker. There seemed to be a joy in tearing down the series. The show was “review bombed” shortly after its premiere. There were complaints about the inclusion of a gay Klingon character. The appearance of outright body-shaming of female characters. Complaints that the series bowed to DEI because of its diverse cast. Some, like TrekCulture YouTuber Sean Ferrick, suggest there was a coordinated campaign to bring down the show. Some of the vitriol bordered on racism and homophobia. A number of what seemed to be right-wing YouTube channels had video after video talking down the series. When the series was cancelled before its yet-to-be-released second season, there were shouts for joy. Jonathan Frakes, who played Will Riker on The Next Generation, believes “trolls” had a role in getting the series cancelled.

Why was there so much anger over a television show?

This is a sign of something deeper happening in American society. Toxic fandom has plagued not just Star Trek, but also Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. It seems weird for people to be so invested in a fictional story, but here we are.

Following several Trek-related groups, I could look at this from a political standpoint. But I go back to this question: why was there so much anger over a television show? Why were people so willing to be so mean?

Back in 2023, columnist David Brooks asked the same question in an essay for the Atlantic. For him, the answer lies in a lack of moral formation. We don’t know how to treat others with kindness and civility. Moral formation was a part of American society for decades, until maybe 70 years ago. Whereas in the past, the view was that people are prone to sin and needed to be formed in good character, now we have to free people from restrictive structures to allow them to become the good people they already are. People were expected to make up their own moral lives.

You can guess how that turned out.

“A culture that leaves people morally naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another,” Brooks notes. Without that moral framework, people become sad, lonely and bitter. A moral vacuum forms and people need to fill that gaping hole with something. What is the thing filling the moral hole in our souls? Politics. Brooks explains:

Politics also provides an easy way to feel a sense of purpose. You don’t have to feed the hungry or sit with the widow to be moral; you just have to experience the right emotion. You delude yourself that you are participating in civic life by feeling properly enraged at the other side. That righteous fury rising in your gut lets you know that you are engaged in caring about this country. The culture war is a struggle that gives life meaning.

Politics overwhelms everything. Churches, universities, sports, pop culture, health care are swept up in a succession of battles that are really just one big war—red versus blue. Evangelicalism used to be a faith; today it’s primarily a political identity. College humanities departments used to study literature and history to plumb the human heart and mind; now they sometimes seem exclusively preoccupied with politics, and with the oppressive systems built around race, class, and gender. Late-night comedy shows have become political pep rallies. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died unnecessarily during the pandemic because people saw a virus through the lens of a political struggle.

Reflecting on Brooks’ article, Stephen Greenleaf adds a few thoughts from his own experience. Stephen Greenleaf :

Brooks argues that political divisions have switched from those based on economic interests and perspectives to those based on identity. Even evangelicalism has become less of a theological identity than a political identity, while on the left, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and other “identity” characteristics have come to the fore, often to the detriment of wage-earners, of whatever race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Also, as Brooks notes, political identification has become a primary form of identity no longer mediated by other ties. This, too, differs from my youth. My parents were small-town, business-oriented Republicans, with my dad especially active in party politics. Yet, the wins or losses were not too big a deal. In my parents’ middle-middle-class social circles were Democrats (not many), but still friends with friendly differences, like some folks being Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, or even Catholics (as in our family, with my Catholic mother and Presbyterian father, even before the Catholic Church came out of its isolationist stance in the 1960s with the two Johns: JFK & Pope John 23rd). While politics was a contest, sometimes heated, with extremists on both sides, the mood was, on the whole, civil. Republicans didn’t want too much government, but they didn’t want the government to fail; Democrats were usually for greater welfare and slightly higher taxes, but not to any great extremes. Not utopia, certainly, and sometimes too conformist, but there was a degree of civility and common purpose that our nation lacks now.

For me, this explains why people were so upset at Starfleet Academy in a way that seemed out of joint with the context. In short, they weren’t upset at the series, but something bigger. It became a battle against the forces of DEI, or gay rights, or what have you. It was their tribe against the hordes. When Paramount announced it was canceling the show, this group saw it as a victory against forces they believed were arrayed against them.

Now, I need to make a caveat. The point of this article is not to bash conservatives. My own politics are centrist to center-right. Despite what some progressives seem to believe, Star Trek isn’t just for progressives or only promoting progressive values. As I said earlier, it holds up values that many of us, regardless of politics. The point of this is that our messed-up politics takes everything, including science fiction television shows, and makes it into an existential crisis.

That said, the values Trek shares are needed now more than ever. Which is what makes the loss of Starfleet Academy such a tragedy, because it was asking how to keep those values when the world is in flux. The show is set a few years following the aftermath of “the Burn,” a cataclysmic event that shatters the Federation, resulting in member worlds left to fend for themselves. As the intergalactic union comes back together after a century apart, it is asking itself questions such as how to retain the values of the Federation after a time of sundering. Can they learn to work together again? Can they regain their sense of exploration?

While the America of 2026 isn’t like the fictional Federation, we are dealing with questions. What does a nation that is so diverse in race, ethnicity, sexuality and ideology have in common? How does democracy sustain itself in a time of cultural and technological upheaval? How can such a diverse nation and world hold together when there is such temptation to fly apart?

The sad thing is, Starfleet Academy was trying to ask those questions and provide answers. They may not always be the answers I always want, but they might have let me think about them more. A number people didn’t feel it affirmed them, so if it couldn’t do that, then no one should have it.

Another sad thing is that with the recent merger of Paramount and Skydance and now the merger with Warner Brothers, it means the new entity will be in debt. It will want to focus on bankable hits. Some reports say the new owner, David Ellison, wants to release 30 movies a year, and they all have to make money. This probably means there will be less money for things like Star Trek television, which can be expensive to produce. The review bombing and response from right-wing influencers will also make Paramount think twice about a new series for a while. Some observers believe we are entering another “fallow period” where there will be no new shows for 10-15 years. There is talk of a Trek movie in development, but we don’t know more than that. After the second season of Starfleet Academy and the fifth season of Strange New Worlds conclude in 2027, that might be it for a long while.

The rancid politics of 2026 destroyed a television show. Maybe it would have been canceled after the second season because of ratings, who knows. But the cultural battle against Starfleet Academy shows there is no place where the culture war won’t find you. When politics is identity, then everything is game.

Even a television show.