Long Time Star Trek Fan Stacey Abrams Beams Onto ‘Discovery’ Season 4 Finale
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SPOILER AHEAD
If you haven’t seen the season 4 finale of Star Trek: Discovery, “Coming Home,” do so now.
Stacey Abrams may be running for governor of Georgia, but in the future she has arrived to fill a bigger role.
The New York Times said of Abrams Thursday, “As [she] began her second campaign for Georgia governor with a speech this week about Medicaid expansion in front of a shuttered rural hospital, the crowd of about 50 peppered her with questions on issues like paving new roads.”
But Sandra Willis, the mayor pro tem of this town of roughly 3,500 people, had a broader point to make. “Once you get elected, you won’t forget us, will you?” she asked.
The question reflected Ms. Abrams’s status as a national Democratic celebrity, who was widely credited with helping to deliver Georgia for her party in the 2020 elections and has made her name synonymous with the fight for voting rights.
But she has shown little desire to put ballot access at the center of her bid. Her first days on the campaign trail have been spent largely in small, rural towns like Cuthbert, where she is more interested in discussing Medicaid expansion and aid to small businesses than the flagship issue that helped catapult her to national fame.
All of this is why, while Ms. Abrams’s public image has expanded, she has not deviated much from the campaign strategy she employed in 2018. During her first run for governor, she visited all 159 of Georgia’s counties and aimed for surges in turnout in deep-blue metro Atlanta counties even as she sought to turn out new voters in rural areas that Democrats had historically ceded to Republicans. Several of her 2022 campaign staff members formed her 2018 brain trust.
“She has a certain star, national spotlight quality that you rarely see with Southern candidates,” said LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter in Georgia. She expressed confidence that Ms. Abrams’s candidacy would “continue to keep the voting rights issue from dying.”
“Four years ago, when I applied for this job of governor, I had my application declined,” she told supporters in Atlanta on Monday. “That’s OK. I’ve had four years to work on things. I’ve had four years to live up to what I told folks I would do when I was running for office.”
During her speech in Atlanta, Ms. Abrams mentioned voting rights only briefly, alluding to the state’s new voting law as she warned of a Republican backlash to Democrats’ inroads in Georgia in recent election cycles.
In the interview, she said that in 2018, she had underestimated the extent of limits on access to the ballot.
“I was aware of the general architecture,” Ms. Abrams said. “I was not aware of just how deeply embedded it had become in the conduct of our elections. And that is not something that will surprise me again.”
Stacey Abrams took a break from pretending to be governor of Georgia to be President of “United Earth” on Star Trek. pic.twitter.com/YXZWELWtey
— Mack✍️???? (@beingrealmac2) March 17, 2022
Back in 2020 Nerdist said: Stacey Abrams is a national treasure. And right now, people are realizing just how much so. Mainly thanks to her efforts to get 800,000 new voters registered in her home state of Georgia, and fighting voter suppression. She’s a politician, a lawyer, and served in the Georgia House of Representatives as minority leader. Oh, and she’s also a notable geek. Specifically, she’s a huge Star Trek fan.
In 2019, for the Now This YouTube channel, Abrams revealed her Star Trek bonafides. She did a deep dive into why she loves the timeless franchise so much, and how it helped shape her world view and career. You can watch the full video above.
I will admit, I absolutely loved the fact that one of Abrams’ favorite episodes is the not-celebrated-enough TNG episode “Peak Performance.” This episode finds Picard having to fight Commander Riker in a series of war games, while Data discovers that he’s not so infallible. In the video, Abrams even says the episodes message that “if you avoid taking the obvious risks, and the obvious challenges, you can find your way to victory anyway. And that is completely how I’ve organized my political career.”
Of course, Abrams’ rankings of the franchise might be controversial. But as someone who loves the “space-time continuum” aspects of Trek lore more than the other aspects of the franchise, it makes sense why she’d rank Voyager at the top. But although she appreciates Deep Space Nine, the fact that the show is more about politics and tension makes her like it less. As Abrams says, “I do a lot of that in my day job.” Ok, that’s hard to argue with. Regardless of her ranking, Abrams comments show how important pop culture is to shaping who we are. And we should all be grateful to Star Trek for helping shape her worldview.
