“Star Trek” actor Walter Koenig called out President Donald Trump, his administration and his supporters in a new interview in which he described the current era as “a particularly heinous moment in American history.”
“This is not only because of a few individuals who now have control of the government, but that there is so much support for them,” Koenig, aka Pavel Chekov in the sci-fi show’s universe, told Salon Monday.
“There’s so much vitriol, discontent and anger,” he said. “These people are willing to sacrifice the good things in our culture and in our life to support evil things. We as a country and a culture have not gotten to a positive place of progress from which we are not willing to retreat from.”
Koenig said he believed America had “really turned a corner” with the election of former President Barack Obama in 2008.
“And then we have Donald Trump,” he said. “There is a certain despair that follows me, that haunts me, because we’re still doing the same things.”
Later in the interview, however, he highlighted the need for hope and said that without it, “we’re surrendering. Then we’re giving up.”
“Hope may be temporary. It may last for five years or 10 years,” he said. “We are driven to make things better. We have that dream to make a better world.”
“If ultimately it all crashes, then the ugly parts of human nature come to the surface and those attributes become the dominant characteristics of a culture and a society,” he continued. “That is sad and very depressing. But I think that our only choice is keep that hope going to make things better.”
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