In 1966, when “Star Trek” debuted on NBC, Donald Trump was starting his junior year of college, so it’s unlikely he was spending an hour a week following the Enterprise where no man had gone before. Yet, anyone who did follow that original series through its (abbreviated) five-year mission from 1966 to 1969 recognizes aspects of President Trump’s behavior in examples from its characters, both Federation and alien.
The rift between President Trump and Elon Musk is a perfect reminder that Trump subscribes to the Talosian school of persuasion. Introduced in the original series pilot “The Cage” (which was later repurposed as the two-part episode “The Menagerie”), the inhabitants of Talos IV are a race of beings so intellectually advanced that they have developed hypertelepathy: Not only can they read minds, they can force other beings to experience any illusion they wish, complete with totally immersive sensation. Thus, when they wish to control another creature’s behavior, they use a combination of illusions of agonizing pain and ones of pleasantness and pleasure. As a Talosian tells Captain Pike, “Wrong thinking will be punished. Right thinking will be as swiftly rewarded.”
For many months, Elon Musk found his expressions of right thinking amply rewarded with Trump’s praise and access to Trump’s inner circle. He reveled in his newfound role as a political force, a player in the new Administration, and a personal favorite of the President.
But Musk clearly never learned the lesson of “The Menagerie.” If he had, he might have noted how Trump dealt with rivals like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Nikki Haley. When Cruz and Rubio ran against him for the Republican nomination in 2016, he punished their wrong thinking with ridicule and personal insults. Once they finally reconciled themselves to Trump’s victory, dropped their adversarial stance toward him, and began to praise him, he responded by rewarding their right thinking. Thus, Rubio became Secretary of State and Cruz received Trump’s endorsement at a Texas campaign rally. When Haley ran against him in 2024, she went from trusted Trump adviser to pariah.
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