This should be the most amazing time to be George Takei.

Think about it. At what other point in our nation's history could a gay, 78-year-old actor and civil rights advocate — survivor of a Japanese-American internment camp, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, improbable social media superstar — materialize on 112 million TV screens during the Super Bowl, cackling like a madman from a jagged ivory throne, hawking a pocket of greasy beef and pepper jack dubbed the Taco Bell Quesalupa? Amazing, right?

But the world isn't all likes and faves for Takei. He may be one of the most colorful patches in the quilt of the modern Internet, but he's troubled by a lot of what he sees in America these days. And for a man who has experienced some of our nation's darkest moments firsthand, that's saying something.

"This political climate today reminds me of what my father must have gone through in 1942, when the winds of war and fires of hate were surrounding him," said Takei, calling from his getaway cabin in Arizona's White Mountains. "We have a candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, using the same rhetoric that my father must have heard from elected officials. It kills me to hear Donald Trump talking."

On Monday, Takei will speak at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, part of the University of South Florida's Frontier Forum lecture series. He was invited not only to speak about his career in Hollywood or his side career in politics, but because of his influence on social media, where more than 1.8 million Twitter followers and nearly 10 million Facebook likers hang upon his every quip and pun.

In his speech, as online, Takei will help us all make sense of these amazing, turbulent times with lots of love and LOLs.

"As Mary Poppins said, 'A spoonful of sugar ...'" he chuckled in that wonderfully mellifluous baritone. "Or Grumpy Cat."

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Takei cannot begin to process the complexities of 2016 without taking us back to World War II. He was 5 when his family was ushered into a Japanese-American internment camp in Arkansas, an experience that permanently molded his worldview.

"We were Americans who looked like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor," he said. "And yet this country would stand by elected officials — elected officials, people's representatives — who played on ignorance and fear."

During those years and those that followed, Takei took a keen interest in politics and repeatedly pressed his father on why he allowed the family to be imprisoned. They argued, often heatedly. But his father was also the man who engaged his political side, driving him to work with volunteers on the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson.

"I learned about our democracy from a man who lost everything that he had built up in his life in middle age," Takei said of his father. "He said, 'American democracy is a people's democracy. It can be as great as the people in your civics books. ... But it's also as fallible as the people of this democracy.' "

Takei became a working stage and TV actor in the 1960s, a time of even greater societal upheaval: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, a division of American culture between young and old, left and right.

"At a time like this," he said, "Star Trek came on, with that optimistic vision of the future."

Like the rest of Star Trek's diverse cast, Takei's careermaking role of Mr. Sulu was a groundbreaker for Asian-Americans, a fleshed-out, three-dimensional character who during the decadeslong evolution of the Star Trek universe would eventually rise to the rank of captain.

The show gave Takei a platform. He was a George McGovern delegate during 1972's Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, and served 11 years on the board of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. People came to hear him speak even when he wasn't speaking about Star Trek — often especially when he wasn't speaking about Star Trek. But it wouldn't have been possible without the fame the show afforded him.

"I was blessed with my career," he said. "I passionately love acting. And it's given me a good livelihood. So when you have such blessings, you have to remember that with those blessings comes responsibility. I have access to a megaphone or the TV cameras, or people like you. That's where I have to parlay whatever amplification I may have been given by my career to make the best of our society work."

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Takei will turn 79 on Wednesday, two days after his lecture in Tampa. He has "a whole library full of lifetime achievement awards," he said, though he doesn't feel anywhere near close to the end of his life or career. His grandmother lived to 104. He might have another 25 years left.

Nowhere is this clearer than on social media, where Takei has an all-ages following for the dozens of memes, gifs, listicles and cute animals he tweets and posts every day.

"Little Known Facts About The Lion King"? Click.

"Things You Used to Wear in the '90s That You Wouldn't Be Caught Dead in Now"? Click.

"Sexy Secrets They Didn't Teach You in History Class"? Oh myyy. Click click click.

But every now and then, Takei will toss in a link to a story about guns, or immigration, or his old Apprentice boss, Donald Trump. (He's a Hillary guy, if you're wondering.) He finds links or offers quips to make these stories shareable, too.

He also does it in real life. Takei recently ended a Broadway musical called Allegiance, inspired by his family's true story of imprisonment during World War II. When Trump began huffing and puffing about deporting Muslims and building a wall against Mexico, Takei announced he would save an aisle seat for Trump at every performance. It got a lot of press and traction on social media.

"That became great selfie bait," he said. "During intermission, there was a line of people waiting to squat down next to that seat and take selfies."

This is the aspect of Takei's personality amplified in that Taco Bell commercial, where he plays a character called "the King of All Media," who scopes out all things viral in search of something, anything, as magical as the Quesalupa.

"It's a combination of my suggestions and their idea of a caricature," he chuckled. "It's so cheesy. In every sense of that word."

But he doesn't mind. He rather enjoys being human clickbait, lovable and shareable and retweetable. It means when he has something important to say, all the more people will listen.

"I love people," he said. "When you're engaged with society and trying to make it a better society, you're an optimist. And you get to enjoy people, and what makes people people, and that's what makes me who I am." He laughed. "And I'm a ham to boot."

So in these amazing times — and, yes, turbulent times, too, but seriously, have you even tried the Quesalupa? — we must turn to Mr. Sulu, a man unafraid to steer our ship down a better path. He has been through all the bad times. And he can see better ones ahead.

"It's at times like this," Takei said, "when we see such turbulence and so many scary things happening, it's important we see through all that, to where we can be actively engaged in this process, saying, 'This is wrong, and we're going to make it better.' "

Contact Jay Cridlin at cridlin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8336. Follow @JayCridlin.