Trump now seems to be embracing Nazi chic. Someone take his phone off him

If anyone has earned the right to indulge in a hobby or two, it is surely an 80-year-old man, enjoying his golden years of retirement, after decades in the workforce. Few of us would want to begrudge a pensioner that. Donald Trump, though, is not just any 80-year-old. Instead of winding down as he enters his ninth decade, he volunteered himself for not just the most demanding job of his own career – that of US president – but one of the most demanding jobs in the world. Trump is trying to end multiple wars across the world, including one he started with Iran, and last weekend had his personal envoys negotiating in person with Vladimir Putin. There is a cost of living crisis to tackle at home, and midterm elections in less than two months that will decide the rest of his presidency. Shorts As if those didn’t amount to enough pressures on his time, he already has one hobby that borders on obsession: the President spends hours every weekend playing golf, almost always on courses he owns. That would be enough for almost anyone, but Trump sadly seems to have plenty more time – day or night – to indulge in yet another favourite activity: boomer-posting on social media, spending his idle moments putting up AI slop relentlessly. This hit new levels over the weekend, with the President posting dozens of images in rapid succession – culminating in an AI image of a new Nazi-inspired aesthetic for one of the branches of the US military. Trump steps off Air Force One in New Jersey before spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP) Trump has always been an avid user of social media. It’s arguable that he would never have become president without it. Trump built up a following of millions with his authentic, if erratic, posting, first on whatever topics jumped to mind while he was still the popular host of The Apprentice, and then with increasing monomania about the Obama birther conspiracy – the false idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, rather than the USA, making him ineligible for the office. Social media was a huge asset for Trump – he used it to coin nicknames for political rivals, attack foes in the media, and give his millions of followers marching orders as to who to pile onto, and how. Endless column inches were spent writing about the President’s supposed genius with the medium. Anyone trying to claim the President’s recent use was “genius” would have a much harder time of it. Last week, he posted an AI-generated video of Kharg island – a vital Iranian oil hub – supposedly being blanketed with explosions after a US bombing operation. Once, something like that would spark alarm. Today it is barely noticed, aside from a few concerns about whether Trump knew for sure the video was not real. On Sunday afternoon, he posted crude AI-generated memes showing himself renaming the state of New Mexico “New America”; a meme announcing the Strait of Hormuz to be “New US Territory”; himself smacking Iran with a wooden mallet emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes; and a meme showing himself as the greatest US president in history – ahead of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Amid that torrent of slop, though, one picture stood out: an image supposedly showing a new uniform design for the US Space Force, a branch of the military set up by Trump himself to oversee security issues concerning outer space. The image says clearly it was ‘inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform’ – referring to a Hollywood sci-fi movie (Image: Truth Social @realDonaldTrump) The uniforms are a smart dark grey, with leather epaulets, and what can only be described as jackboots. Just in case anyone missed their aesthetic origins, it states plainly that they are “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform”. Starship Troopers was a 1997 sci-fi film explicitly written and shot as an “ironic” play on a futuristic fascist state – and the uniforms were expressly designed to signal that to an audience. The film’s director, Paul Verhoeven, who grew up under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, said in 2022: “I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism,” adding that it had been “about American politics”. By posting the image of a US military service member in Nazi chic, Trump seems to be embracing that fascist vision, either knowingly or unknowingly, because he simply likes the visual. Of course, liking an AI uniform doesn’t in any way suggest Trump is a Nazi or a proponent of Nazi ideas. One image might be an accident. But the President seems to be on a roll on the theme of space. Another shows him sitting on the bridge of a spaceship as a viewing window behind him shows two cataclysmic nuclear detonations happening down on Earth. A third shows him leading a US-themed imperial march, showing slightly off-brand AT-AT walkers from Star Wars – the four-legged fighting machines of Vader’s evil Empire – proceeding behind him. Starship Troopers is a famously subtle movie, which has been criticised in the years since for being admired by the people it is trying to condemn. Star Wars, on the other hand, has never been accused of subtlety. The Empire is made up of Space Nazis, pure and simple. Does Trump want his dwindling pool of supporters to think they were the good guys, now? Or is the man in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal no longer capable of understanding the basic messages he’s relentlessly posting? Everyone is entitled to a hobby. But for his own sake, and that of the world, perhaps it would be best if Donald Trump stuck to golf.