Trump posts Space Force uniforms derived from fascist-inspired 'Starship Troopers' outfits

Steven Lemongello, Orlando Sentinel on Sep 7, 2026

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President Donald Trump posted an image of dark “next generation” U.S. Space Force uniforms on Sunday that the text claims were “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform” — a design the director of the 1997 film “Starship Troopers” said was directly meant to evoke Nazis.

Trump also posted an AI-generated image titled “Space Force” of himself in a spaceship as two nuclear mushroom clouds detonate on Earth behind him, part of a frenzy of Truth Social postings over the weekend that also included AI images of himself in a decorated military uniform and pondering changing “New Mexico” to “New America.”

The “next generation” uniforms, the image text stated, were “modernized for the Guardians of the space domain.”

The Space Force, which Trump signed into law in 2019, had already announced new service dress uniforms for their Guardians last year.

But Trump’s post was of black boots, black shirts and “midnight black” collars, seemingly evoking the villains in a science fiction movie — which is what they were.

Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director of the 1995 film based on Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel about a space military fighting giant bugs, said his movie was about “fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism.”

“I borrowed from the films of Leni Riefenstahl to show that these soldiers were like something out of Nazi propaganda,” he wrote in the Guardian in 2018. “I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed.'”

That character, played by Neil Patrick Harris, wears a black uniform very similar to the “next generation” Space Force uniforms posted by Trump.

“If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn’t work, no one will listen to me,” Verhoeven said in a 2014 interview. “So I’m going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it’s only good for killing … ”

The Space Force has bases in California, Colorado and Florida, including Patrick Space Force Base in Brevard County. Florida’s congressional delegation recently pushed for a new Space Academy to be located in the state.

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