As the U.S. presidential election on November 5 gets closer, Star Trek stars and creatives have multiple events planned to fundraise and get people involved. We already reported on Geeks & Nerds for Harris, which took place on September 24, and Women for Star Trek, happening on October 3.
Jonathan Del Arco, who played Hugh on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard and Fantome on Voyager, chatted with us to talk about the Trek the Vote show on October 2. Hosted by Trekkies Jon Lovett and Alice Wetterlund, guests so far include Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Jeri Ryan, Rosalind Chao, Tawny Newsome, Eugene Cordero, Noël Wells, Mike McMahan, and of course, Del Arco himself. In part 1 of our interview with Del Arco, we asked him what to expect at this “comedy show that blends politics, games, and a healthy scoop of hot nerdery.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Trek the Vote is a comedy show, not just a Zoom
Tell me about the Trek the Vote plan for October 2..
So I will totally take credit for having done the first Trek the Vote for the Biden-Harris campaign, but we were in the middle of pandemic. If you remember, we were all Star Trek convention deprived and on Zoom. And so we did this event for Biden Harris and raised $1.2 million. I put it together with my friends, asked all my friends to join, got the campaign involved, got some politicos that were Trekkies involved, and then two months later, we did it for Georgia candidates Warnock and Ossoff and raised like another quarter of a million dollars for them. Both were done in the way these Zoom calls are being done now.
This one is a little bit different. I’m hoping it’s a little bit more entertaining. You know, John Lovett is a big Trekkie. I met him at a Biden fundraiser. So I think we’re gonna have, like, games. It’s gonna be a much more entertainment-based slash political gabfest.
What do you mean when you say games?
You know what? They have kept me in the dark about it!
I’ve been super busy campaigning. And Crooked Media has a very successful producing arm that are shaping it, like one of Jon Lovett’s shows, Lovett or Leave It, in which he does games, etc., so I’m going to be a contestant, if you will, or a participant, without really knowing what the games are at this point. So we’ll see what they are. I’m excited.
This is primarily a fundraiser, right? Where’s the money going?
Vote Save America is a nonprofit connected to Crooked Media. They do a ton of get out the vote efforts across swing states and in districts where they’re trying to get Democrats elected and progressives elected so that it goes to that nonprofit that then funds all of these volunteer efforts across the country. By the way, super important to give to campaigns; also super important to give to organizations that provide infrastructure for getting people to the polls, getting water to people that are knocking on doors. It’s an all-out effort by everybody. Because the campaign is doing very well financially, I like the idea of spreading the wealth a little bit and letting these small organizations have some oxygen so that they can do their very important work.
You can campaign for your favorite candidate, for your favorite party and your issues, but the down ballot, meaning who gets elected under that person, will have a huge impact on what legislation gets passed, what bad laws get passed, versus good laws that are for us, not against us. So these smaller organizations work really hard on getting the Congress and the Senate and judges seated, etc.
I just really hope that the fans turn up for it and become politically as active as they can be, especially some of our fans who live in swing states. There’s a really big need to get people out to the polls.
And then there’s a live show for some of the people who donate?
They did it very democratically. I think it was just the first 35 people to have bought a ticket get to go live in a studio audience here in LA. It’s a very party energy like that show that they do, Lovett and Leave It. I think there’s cocktails involved… I think it’s a very relaxed cocktail environment.
And did anyone in that group of Star Trek stars have any hesitation when they found out it was going to be games and tomfoolery and who knows what?
You think I told them? [laughs]
Listen, tomfoolery is all their middle names. I’m not too concerned. We do these Star Trek cruises in which we do all kinds of crazy stuff. But, oh yes, we let them know there would be games and tomfoolery involved. Okay, none of our Trek family is stuffy or stiff.
Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Del Arco sharing a laugh on the set o Star Trek: Picard (Photo: X/Jonathan Del Arco)
True! So whenever here’s something like this on our site, people complain about actors getting involved in politics. And I know my answer to that, but I would love to hear yours.
Sure. I’m involved in politics as a citizen of the United States of America. I’m not involved in politics as an actor. I’m involved in politics as someone who cares about democracy, who cares about gay rights, who cares about women’s rights, who cares about a world in which we as America are the standard bearer for human rights and freedoms. That’s why I campaign. I go knock on doors. If their bone to pick is that because I’m an actor, more people will listen to me, then tough luck, because that is part of the perk of being an actor.
I don’t tell people how to vote. I tell people why I’m voting the way I’m voting, and the reasons why it’s important to me… So I don’t get too bent out of shape about people feeling offended that I’m pushing a political agenda. I’m not. I’m pushing what is important to me. They’re allowed to push what’s important to them, right? To their two followers. [laughs]
I know what they are for me, but what would you say are the stakes in this election?
Well, in the first place, the choice is between someone with all their mental faculties who’s young enough to do the job, and a very deranged old man. That’s the top line item for me. He’s a deranged old man. Here’s the problem with that. The people under him have already told us what they plan to do with the country once the deranged old man can’t call the shots anymore. That’s called Project 2025, you don’t need to know anything more than to know what those plans are. They actually wrote them down, and amongst the things they want to do is dismantle the government, get rid of the Department of Education, take away more women’s rights. They reference families being a man, a woman and a child. So eliminating gay marriage is definitely on the agenda, on the on the block, you name it, they are trying to move us into being a Christian nation, not a democracy, a theocracy, a government run by religious people. And the problem among many is when you have religious people like this guy running for governor in North Carolina, is the hypocrisy of what these religious people believe in versus what they do well, i.e. go on porn sites and describe themselves as Nazis, etc. These are not people I feel good handing the keys to our government to, so that’s top line. Even if he were to be mentally able to do the things he’s doing, he will continue to change the courts such a degree that people like myself, my friends that are that are in the gay community, all of my women friends and the women in my life will continue to have less and less and less rights. So it’s pretty draconian.
I want people that feel powerless to say, well, at least I can go vote. I’m not going to stay on the couch. I’m going to get up and go vote. Even better, I’m going to get up and go volunteer. But if you can’t do that, at least go vote. Right? That’s my hope.
🖖Help us protect the future and support the Harris/ Walz campaign!
A bunch of Starfleet officers (and I) will be live streaming a fundraiser with @jonlovett on 10/2. Donate and join us online or in person! https://t.co/SgUErszi0z pic.twitter.com/t6btlJYz7B
— Mike McMahan (@MikeMcMahanTM) September 19, 2024
TNG, Picard, and Hugh’s death
Read part 2 of our interview with Jonathan Del Arco, where he talks frankly about the surprise of Hugh’s death, the origins of Picard before Patrick Stewart signed on, finding Hugh’s backstory, missed opportunities to connect the dots with his character, and working with Whoopi Goldberg.
Before you hit up the comments section…
You may not agree with the candidates being supported by these events; Star Trek fans are a diverse group of people with a wide range of opinions. Participants and supporters should not be harassed or belittled for expressing their opinions and campaigning for candidates and causes they believe in.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Just FYI: Since it’s a political donation, this is only open to American citizens or legal permanent residents over 18, according to the website.
I double checked since I’m in Canada (but everyone on the whole darned planet will be affected by the outcome of this election).
I know this site avoids politics, but I’ll say that for me, only one of the two major party presidential tickets embraces the sorts of values and vision demonstrated again and again over Star Trek’s 58 years.
I agree. That’s why I am not going to vote for the one that
*pushes for one party to rule us all attitude like the Borg
*believes in censorship of things they don’t like or agree with like Admiral Nora Satee
*doesn’t believe in the right of its citizens to defend against hostile force with a legal weapon like the Marquis
*would imprison an individual or hinder personal liberty and freedoms “for the greater good” and or virtuous appearances like Starfleet did to the Bakoo
*uses government for personal self enrichment and personal gain, at the expense of the hard working
*creates and maintains a permanent labor class to use and abuse like a caste society of holograms/androids
*subverts the laws of the land for themselves but acts all high and mighty when the other one does something they don’t like House of Duras
*Push for endless wars like a Romulan
*Tax the living daylights out of everyone like a Farengi who just thinks “War is good for Business”
*uses shadowy government background players to investigate and do their bidding and black ops that are against the law like Section 37
*doing everything they can to prevent the peaceful exploration of space and reach for the stars and other planets like the Terra Nova by Lawfare and investigations permits
*setting race relations back 69 years to a time like Let that be your last battlefield
Hinder personal liberty, you say? Subverts the laws of the land for themselves but acts all high and mighty when the other one does something they don’t, you say? Doing everything they can to prevent the peaceful exploration of space, you say? Setting race relations back 69 years, you say?
Do you even hear yourself? Do you know who it is you’re voting for?
So, you’re voting for Harris. Good.
You really thought you had something with this comment, didn’t you?
He did, because he does. Think outside the box.
Fantastic comment 👍👍👍
Well said, sir.
And we don’t have to bring up the Ekosians and the Zeons, do we? Not a lot of Zeons on this list.
What are you implying here, that the latest crop of Trek stars are anti-Semitic? As a Jew myself I’d like a clarification.
Of course not. To be honest, I’ve never had any faith in the political knowledge of people in entertainment (Ronald Reagan and maybe one or two others excepted :-) ). Sue me: I’m very political aware and even have degrees in it. But of course neither they, nor much of the Left, is necessarily guilty of any or all of the list above of ways in which another part of the Left does, indeed, trample on freedom and democracy. But those offenses to alleged ideals undoubtedly take place, just as it is painfully true that anti-Semitism is a major phenomenon on the Left today (has been, for many years) as well. How guilty those who passively or actively go along with others who actually practice it is another matter, but a substantial one. Hence the reference to Ekos.
At some point you hope the people doing such things will say, as in the famous sketch, “Are we the baddies?” But the sketch is funny because, alas, people seldom if ever do that.
Well, of course the irony is that most Jews outside of Israel historically tend to skew Left in their politics, a fact which didn’t exactly endear them to Hitler and that, as with so much else, Donald Trump finds most unfair. That said, I won’t deny that there’s some genuine anti-semitism on the Left (excluding criticism of Israel, of which it should be no more exempt than any other nation-state), there being a generous helping of bigoted idiots spaced all along the political spectrum. So in the interest of getting at the truth in this matter, I have a little project that should be well-suited to someone who is “very politically aware and has several degrees in it”: do a survey of every avowedly racist and neo-Nazi public figure in this country — from David Duke and Nick Fuentes to the KKK and the swastika-bearing thugs who write for The Daily Stormer and are currently harassing Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH — and ask them who they plan to vote for in November. Though I’m not much of a gambler I’d be willing to put down a fair chunk of change at the results skewing approximately 100% in one particular direction — but hey, life is full of surprises. Get back to me, and be prepared to show your work. I’ll wait.
I’m an American Jew who moved off to Israel because I was sick and tired of worrying about anti-semitism. And I cannot wait until I get to send in my vote for Harris. I like the way your mind works, Mr. Hall.
Can’t wait because she loves your- our- country so much?
OK, so you give me the names of a bunch of anti-Semites and ask me who they’ll be voting for. First of all, I honestly don’t know: Most of those people think Trump is a Jewish front. Second, you of course chose your own list, and even then weren’t able to find anyone other than a few losers. I can give you a much longer of list of anti-Semites who are voting for Harris, and many of them are federal office holders. (And no, pretty much all criticism of Israel is made by people who have a problem with the Jooooz, since you’re trying to paper that over too.)
Oh, pleeze. By all means, pony-up and provide that list, along with specific reasons of why you consider the people included to be anti-semitic. We’ll see if “anti-semitism” is merely a cheapjack conflation for “critical of Israeli policy,” which speaking as a Jew I can assure you are not the same thing. (Lots of Jews are critical of Netanyahu’s government, including Jews who live in Israel: no papering-over required, sorry.)
As to who the real Jew-haters in America are, I would expect at least a better dodge from someone who claims to be educated in politics and history. Because while hateful people indeed exist on all parts of the political spectrum it’s just a matter of historical fact that in the United States (as opposed to Eastern Europe or Soviet Russia) most of the institutionalized anti-semitism has been on the Right and far-Right, from Charles Nero and the John Birch Society through the KKK and Neo-Nazi movements. (Just as most Jews identify with the Left, even some of those who are hawkish on Israel.) For all your accusations of cherry-picking “losers,” that’s tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, the overwhelming majority of whom are going to proudly — just ask them! — pull the lever for Donald Trump in November. I’m sorry those facts are inconvenient for you, just as it’s inconvenient that so many lifelong conservatives who share your admiration for Ronald Reagan are putting aside their policy differences with Kamala Harris to endorse her in light of Trump’s incompetence, narcissism, and indifference to democratic norms. I might even hold out some hope that who you’re allying yourself with might be the impetus for some soul-searching and reflection. But I won’t hold my breath.
The best comment i’ve ever seen on here. I’m not even American btw.
Then you surely must have missed my post back in 2019 where I speculated as to what became of all that tribble poop we never got to see. It was considered an instant classic by everyone posting on these forums, including the non-Americans.
LOL!
I appreciate this comment.
It demonstrates (in a witty way) that both political parties have their bad sides (they also have good sides!) and neither one should be conflated with the the idea of a Trek-like future.
A future like the one Trekkies dream of will require the best wisdom from more than one world view.
Ironically, some Trekkies support diveristy and other cultures from all around the world, but also cannot even work to understand view point differences from within even their own culture – and make such gradiose claims that they are fully right, and others are fully wrong.
This completely misses the lessons learned in Star Trek.
Exactly! Trump is a criminal, literally. And even though he is trying to back away from Project 2025, the reality is it was his goons that came up with it and he’s mentioned by name numerous times in it. And the guy is running on a similar platform anyway, just callimg it a different name basically. There is stuff so deplorable in it other Republicans say it’s dangerous and unconstitutional.
The turnover of Roe vs Wade was just the beginning. And woken have already died over it. These people want to strip our rights to a scary level. This is the same party who is running a guy for Governor who said he wanted to bring slavery back, called himself a Nazi and the guy is black himself. The RNC hasn’t asked him to quit nor has Trump pulled his endorsement for him. What is wrong with this sick party?? 🙄
Vote blue if you want democracy and sanity to stay in place . We have to keep these crazies out.
Cannot wait for this election to be over with…
Amen!!!!
Yeah, my safe and secure mail in ballot arrives in about two weeks. Once I get that returned, it’ll be me and my good friend Jameson for the next couple of months. It’ll be a legal s**tshow until January…
Here, here! Sometimes I think if I hear these issues being discussed one more time, my head well explode like Dexter Remmick…
It’s “hear, hear.”
It should be “Hear here” though….
Prepare for the closing of comments in 3…2…1…
To be fair, I’d presume that if some red hatted Trek actors wanted to do a “Trekkers for Trump” fundraiser (sorry, couldn’t really type that out with a straight face) the link would also get posted. I’m sure their campaign has the folks who fabricated the “Swifties for Trump” are all over this, as we speak…..
Just being honest but I have no idea how you could be a Star Trek fan and support the guy who tried to overthrow the government to illegally stay in power?
Being a Republican or a conservative, that’s completely fine, but a Trump supporter at this point just utterly baffles me.Even other Republicans think he’s completely unfit and dangerous. When AOC and Dick Cheney both agree on something, we’re not longer living the prime timeline.
It has nothing to do with tax cuts or how strict someone’s policies are towards immigration and everything to do with a man who has said he wants to lock up his ‘enemies’ if he gets back into office. And the Supreme Court gave him immunity for him to at least try to push these ideas into reality. That’s just scary and as far from democracy as you can get.
Trekkies for Trump sounds about as ridiculous as Trekkies for Putin; Trump’s bestie and war crimes suspect.
Go back and take a look at what I wrote. The comment is basically directed at context that’s just that in this form, if there were a “Trekkers for Trump” that posting notice of it does not reflect an endorsement. I commented that I could barely type that with a straight face.
To be clear, the first Trump Administration is a failed presidency. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died unnecessarily as a direct result of his incompetence. The fact that he attempted a coup should discount him from any further consideration of leadership to anybody who hasn’t turned off their critical thinking skills. I’ve never voted for the man, and never will. I’ve been registered non-partisan my entire adult life and have voted for conservatives in the past. Republicans and conservatives these days are two very distinct groups of people.
Dude I was AGREEING with you. 😉
I was only reiterating your point and how ridiculous it would be.
A good actor or writer usually has a lot of empathy and compassion for others, this is what helps their craft to be able to get inside another person’s head. It is no wonder that the best actors, writers, musicians, and other artists are usually left-winged: because they care about people different from themselves!
I know you were being humorous, but there is no way there could be a legitimate “Trekkies for Trump” event. MAGA folks only care about MAGA folks.
Right, people who disagree with you can’t possibly be in the same orbit as you. That’s a healthy attitude.
We are all human, sure, and we may prioritize differently, but it seems that most artists are left-winged because they are more apt to emphasize with people different from themselves, especially those that are struggling in some way.
Or perhaps because they live in a privileged world of the imagination and don’t deal with hard realities.
I love the heavy lifting “privileged” is doing here, as if it applies to (mostly) impoverished artists, as opposed to the offspring of billionaires.
We can agree to disagree about all sorts of things, like tax policy or the appropriate size for our military, and still work together in good faith to bring about a better world for our children. That’s an entirely different thing than, say, knowingly telling lies about immigrants in order to stoke up fear. If the line between political good and bad faith arguments needs to be drawn somewhere, I’m happy to draw it there.
So you get to define the Overton window? Others may define it differently, you know.
Do tell. Yes indeedy, we all get to define all sorts of things in all sorts of ways, it presently being a free country. You can express all kinds of opinions on a Star Trek forum, you’ll be relieved to know, and no one is going to arrest you. That being said, if knowingly lying about law-abiding people for political purposes isn’t what *you* would define as bad faith, exactly how would *you* define it?
.
Disagreement on policy is always fair. However, when one candidates promise of a return to greatness requires the wholesale suffering of (mostly minority) others I didn’t have to get off that train, as getting on it was never ever going to be an option.
Many artists like to think of themselves as gadflies, which often pits them against whatever system happens to be in power at the moment. I remember seeing a video from the closing days of the Soviet/Gorbachev era of a musical group onstage with shovels, doing a robotic parody of the latest Five Year Plan. In spite of being something of a Lefty myself, I thought they rocked.
Stuff like this makes me very very proud to be both a lifelong Star Trek fan and Democrat. Everyone knows how important this election is. It’s the prosecutor vs the felon who said he would ‘only’ be a dictator on the first day. Let’s keep this corrupt psycho out of the White House and send him to the big house instead.
Vote 💙 and 🖖!
That vile monster accused thousands of people of being here illegally and of eating the pets of their neighbors, and when it was pointed out to him that neither of those things are true just doubled down, vowing to prioritize their deportation if he’s elected, to the cheers of his supporters. I can’t think of anything less in the spirit of Star Trek than that. He must be defeated, and we in turn need to understand how we got to this point, that approximately half of our voting population is fine with this.
Yes, exactly, why does he have so many supporters? Don’t they care who and what he is?
Republicans fall in line, but Democrats want to fall in love. That’s a big reason why every one of the qualified and well-meaning but charismatically-challenged bureaucrats the Dems have nominated since 2000 came up short. Trump had to screw up so monumentally in order to shoo-in Biden on a platform basically just he’d be boring but sensible.
Sadly, grievance and race driven politics is alive and well. His supporters know exactly who he is, they don’t care.
More broadly, the only reason he hasn’t faded away is because the Republican party has become very good at engineering minority elections. Trump always lost the popular vote, and by multiple millions. You can take it to the bank he’s losing the popular vote this November. However, the existence of the Electoral College here (and dogged Republican gerrymandering) vastly overweight’s the importance of (mostly empty) states in the presidential selection process. Because of the EC, in a nation of over 330MM people, where over 160MM votes will be cast, a tiny percentage of voters (around 40,000) in a half dozen counties may tip the scales in favor of the minority candidate. The Republicans know this, and that’s the focus of their efforts, to recreate what Trump did in 2016.
It bothers me when people say the EC is the only thing giving smaller states their fair due, as if states like Wyoming and Rhode Island having as many senators as Ohio isn’t an overcompensation already. There’s zero reason why a presidential campaign would ignore any state if it switched to a popular vote. It’s not like everyone in California, New York, Texas, or Florida votes as a monolith. After the primaries, candidates already ignore most of the flyover states where there’s little chance of changing voting habits enough to flip states, and now only venture outside of the swing states when they need cash. A campaign where every vote is equal would be an incentive to canvas the entire country. Republicans are terrified of that because they know their policies have put them in the minority in all but one election in the last 24 years.
Thanks for the daily reminder to vote for Trump and straight ticket GOP.
“I don’t care about you, I only want your vote.” –Donald Trump, June 9th 2024
Even when the guy says the quiet part out loud, the cult still follows no matter what. Will never get it.
Well, in truth Trump gave away the game much earlier than that, when in a supremely rare moment of honesty and clarity he asserted that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t cost him any votes. Now if, say, Bernie Sanders had said something like that, you or I would likely choose to end our support of him immediately, if for no other reason than our need to respect ourselves. But as opposed to giving a politician your qualified support, self-respect in a cult is never a priority.
What’s sad is it’s gotten even worse as January 6 proved. Trump no longer can just get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, he can now get one of his own supporters to do it for him and they go to prison while he remains Scott free. It’s just insane what some of these people are willing to do for him.
And yes, if Bernie, Obama, Biden or anyone I supported created January 6 to stay in power, we would be the first people to denounce it and make sure they never served in office again. I supported them because they believed in following and upholding the rule of law in the first place; not upending it the minute things don’t go their way.
But apparently Trump’s cult is not only willing to overlook him breaking laws and just being a deplorable human being, they are even willing to help him break it too when necessary. People try to give a false equivalency between the two sides as if we would excuse all the heinous things someone on our side would do as they do with Trump. The difference is I would n-e-v-e-r excuse anyone for innocently shooting someone in the first place. They have proven Trump’s axiom is in fact true and they would; and why this guy and many of his supporters are so dangerous if he gets back into office.
I really hope in a few weeks time we can finally move on from this man forever and he’s held accountable for all the things he’s done.
Outside of the handful of faithful bootlicks that remain at his side, anyone who’s been in his orbit in the last eight or nine years continues to state he’s wholly unfit for the job. He’s promised TrumpAdmin 2.0 will be about nothing but vengeance against real or perceived enemies. Everyone who was literally screaming about Incoherent Joe have gone quiet as Trump incoherently rambles at rallies, hell, the f**king establishment news media sane-washes him at every given opportunity. And polls show this in the margin of error in the south and middle America. I’m down to praying that when people in these states look at their ballots, they are going to say: I. Just. Can’t. Vote for this guy.
I’ve been vocal enough about Trump that if the EC installs him as Dear Leader, I only have two outcomes. That I’m enough of a nobody that they don’t waste time on me, or I’ll live out my final days on the sandy beaches of Guantanamo. No regrets, I suppose…..
I think you’re pretty safe in hoping for outcome #1, should it come to that. There are many tens of millions of people in this country who don’t much care for Donald Trump, and have been plenty vocal about it, whatever might come to pass on November 5th. The fact is, he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to come after us all.
(Of course, I’ve been known to be wrong before.)
Another thing about Democrats is that they usually hate being called hypocrites or being seen to do something wrong. So, Bob Menendez and Eric Adams aside, they usually apologize or even resign when confronted with a big enough scandal. To this day it’s wild to me that Al Franken is no longer a senator but the likes of Trump, Matt Gaetz, Mark Robinson, Larry Craig, Ken Paxton and George Santos stayed the course until they were forcibly removed, or voted out. And yet every Hillary Clinton scandal that led to Republican pearl clutching but zero criminal prosecutions was The Worst Thing Ever.
What matters is that many Democrats have called upon Menendez and Adams to resign (and rightfully so). Franken was actually under enormous pressure from his caucus to resign over a pantomimed cop in a photo and some unwanted kisses, and in one of the great self-sabotaging political moves of the last century Democrats defenestrated ACORN over what turned out to be an entirely ginned-up scandal orchestrated by a right-wing provocateur. Compared to what Republicans have circled the wagons over for the last eight years, it’s literally beyond belief that any of that came to anything.
Rom for Grand Negaus.