The success of the TNG episode "Conspiracy" (the one with the parasites that take over Starfleet) led, through a strange chain of events, to the election of President Barack Obama.

So, "Conspiracy" was aired in 1988 and was very well-received. It had been intended as the introduction of an insectoid race to replace the Ferengi as the "big bads" of TNG. A cliffhanger laid the groundwork for the idea: the insect race would essentially "assimilate" crews and be overall very scary.

But when they started working on a continuation of the story (a story which would eventually become "Q Who"), they ran into a problem: on a 1989 budget, there's no way they could realistically show humanoid insect aliens scary enough to be the series villains. Sticking random googies and jimjaws to people's faces was a lot cheaper, so the Borg were born, and they were an immediate hit.

Now we need to jump ahead eight years to the release of Voyager's season 3 episode "Unity." Producer Brannon Braga apparently saw a TV promo for this episode, and decided that Voyager needed a Borg crewperson, a decision which would eventually result in Jennifer Lien being fired from the production and a new cast member being hired.

The actress they hired for the role of Seven of Nine, Jeri Ryan, was married to Illinois politician Jack Ryan, but their marriage was apparently on the rocks already when she was cast, and they were divorced in 1999.

Then, Jack Ryan (a Republican) decided that he wanted to run for Senate in 2004. An investigation by Illinois journalists led to the unsealing of the Ryans' divorce settlement, which detailed some... let's say Republican-unfriendly sexual preferences, as well as some sexual abuse perpetrated toward Jeri. He dropped out with only four months until the election, and his replacement never stood a chance. Which meant that Democratic challenger Barack Obama, who had already been favored, dominated the Republican competition dramatically. This blowout led to some very glowing news coverage for Obama, which started him on his meteoric rise to the presidency only four years later.