Donald Trump’s favorite movie is Sunset Blvd. The film tells the story of a veteran silent film actress, Norma Desmond, who shuts herself away from the real world in order to reenact her former glory until she loses her mind. In his Independence Day speech, Donald Trump engaged with his long-time friend Norma Desmond.
The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has been a Trump fiasco from start to finish. The grand finale was marred by lightning that delayed Trump’s speech until 11 pm eastern—and pushed the expensive fireworks display into the early hours of July 5.
Trump’s speech honored living heroes of America’s past wars. Each man was called to the stage to be recognized in front of America’s iconic historic flag. Trump read his speech more-or-less as written, engaging in only a few short blurbs that focused on personal grievances or political agendas. As written, the speech was the typical product of Trump’s speechwriting shop: pompous and condescending, without a single memorable line or inspirational grace note. ChatGPT would do better—perhaps better.
But it also had Sunset Blvd feature.
The very first sentence of the document honored on July 4 evoked “due respect for human opinion.” Throughout their history, Americans have been very sensitive to the opinions of others regarding their attempts at republican government. In his first July 4th message to Congress in 1861, Abraham Lincoln declared the fate of the United States a contest of immediate interest to “the whole human family.” Or as Ronald Reagan often said, quoting the Bible through John Winthrop: America is like a city on a hill; the eyes of the whole world are watching it.
Whoever wrote last night’s speech to Trump had some memory of this ancient tradition of American irony. Like the elderly actress Norma Desmond, Trump and her writing team retold their favorite events: the liberation of Europe from the Nazi regime, the defeat of communism. And, like the actor, those events – which were very powerful – have become sad, because they happened a long time ago and the actor has lost his fame and been forgotten.
Under Donald Trump, the United States has fought military conflicts in Venezuela and Iran. It almost went to war with Denmark to capture Greenland. It often talks about incorporating all or part of Canada. It has launched an economic war against allies and partners in violation of international trade agreements and domestic laws. The United States may soon be involved in a war in Cuba. Already, the United States has cut aid to Ukraine as the country fights for its independence. Trump has repeatedly made it clear that the goal of his war is plunder: that he wants to grab oil and other resources. On the other hand, the period of his biggest war, with Iran, seems to be swayed by client states, which have paid him and his allies.
Trump’s preferred rhetorical style on such occasions is brag about yourself about the power of the US military, how no one can match it, how it crushes all before it. He is reported he tells his inner circle that he is personally a more powerful warlord than Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. The real Trump doesn’t care about any values other than national terror and personal wealth. But someone found misremembered snippets from Before Times about freedom on Trump’s teleprompter—and in this rare instance, Trump read the snippets without hesitation.
Americans are used to those pieces. When Trump rejects them, as usual, Trump’s domestic audience may feel uneasy that something once important has been left behind. But when Trump utters them, as he did on July 4, he reminds his global audience of how he established the principles of generosity and liberating values that once made America not only feared but trusted and loved. Trump’s speech claimed credit for a history that Trump sees as a mistake of exploitation. Trump is building a future for the United States oriented towards powerful and corrupt nations: Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Democratic allies are treated, at best, as people to be bullied and, at worst, as targets to carve out new territories for America.
As far as the decision is for Trump, the United States that his speech celebrated on July 4 will no longer exist. Trump’s tragic outcome of the 250th anniversary of “We hold this truth” aptly illustrates how far his leadership has already pushed America away from its past. Americans may not want to realize what Trump has done to their standing in the world. Such denial does not change the truth. Norma Desmond’s last lover—and doomed narrator—decides on the fading star’s descent from delusion to madness: “The dream she’d held so dearly had embraced her.”
Americans have not held their dream close enough, but they too have now been plunged into something dark and decrepit.
