The idea behind “Troopers,” according to Verhoeven, was to create a story that “seduced the audience” on one level,…

The idea behind “Troopers,” according to Verhoeven, was to create a story that “seduced the audience” on one level, but then make it clear to the audience what they were admiring was actually evil.

“Our philosophy was really different [from Heinlein’s book],we wanted to do a double story, a really wonderful adventure story about these young boys and girls fighting, but we also wanted to show that these people are really, in their heart, without knowing it, are on their way to fascism,” Verhoeven said.

The film was widely rejected in 1997. At the time, critics didn’t see the double narrative and panned the film for advocating the very the neo-Nazi tendencies Verhoeven and Neumeier were actively trying to skewer. Watching the film today, 19 years removed, it is hard to understand how people missed Verhoeven’s obvious satiric perspective, with its heightened artifice, campy performances, propaganda newsreels and clear references to Nazi flags and uniforms.

This is how it’s done, Kids.

This is how it’s done, Kids. Trump uses Twitter to bury the story of how he defrauded the American people with Trump University and is forced to pay $25 million.

How does he do it? He picks a Twitter fight with the cast of Hamilton—a show no one will ever see.

The insult:

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/799828798497656832?s=09

The response:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799974635274194947

Mr.

Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.