What Trump’s July 4 Speech Revealed

Donald Trump’s favorite movie is Sunset Boulevard. This film tells the story of an aging silent film star, Norma Desmond, who locks herself away from the real world so that she can endlessly relive past glories until she completely loses her mind. In his Independence Day speech, Donald Trump indulged in his own extended moment with Norma Desmond.

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was a Trump-induced fiasco from start to finish. The grand finale was disrupted by a thunderstorm that delayed Trump’s speech until 11 p.m. ET and pushed back the expensive fireworks display until the early hours of July 5.

Trump’s speech paid tribute to the living heroes of America’s wars past. Each man was called to the stage to be recognized in front of a remarkable historic American flag. Trump dutifully read his speech more or less as written, engaging in only a few brief, impromptu speeches addressing personal grievances or political agendas. As written, the speech was a typical product of Trump’s speechwriting workshop: turgid and boastful, without a single memorable line or inspiring grace note. ChatGPT would have done better, probably much better.

But there was also a Sunset Boulevard aspect.

The very first sentence of the document honored on July 4 invoked “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” Throughout history, Americans have been keenly aware of others’ opinions about their experience with Republican government. In his first Fourth of July message to Congress in 1861, Abraham Lincoln declared that the fate of the American Union was a pressing conflict of interest for “the whole human family.” Or as Ronald Reagan often said, quoting the Bible via John Winthrop: America is like a city on a hill; the eyes of the whole world are turned towards him.

Whoever wrote Trump’s speech last night retained a certain memory of this ancient American rhetorical tradition. Like aging actress Norma Desmond, Trump and his team of screenwriters reenacted their favorite scenes: the liberation of Europe from the Nazi regime, the defeat of communism. And, as with the actress, these scenes – once so powerful – became poignant because they took place so long ago and the actress lost her stardom and was forgotten.

Under Donald Trump, the United States has waged military conflicts in Venezuela and Iran. He almost fought a war with Denmark to capture Greenland. We often talk about annexing all or part of Canada. It has waged economic warfare against its allies and partners in violation of international trade agreements and domestic law. Soon the United States may be engaged in war in Cuba. The United States has already cut aid to Ukraine as the country fights for its survival and freedom. Trump has repeatedly made clear that the goal of his wars is plunder: that he wants to seize oil and other resources. In turn, the course of his most ambitious war, against Iran, appears to have been influenced by client states, which made payments to him and his associates.

Trump’s preferred rhetorical style on such occasions is to brag about the strength of the US military, how no one can match it, how it crushes everything before it. He reportedly told those close to him that he was personally a more powerful warlord than Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. The authentic Trump cares not for any ideals beyond national fear and personal enrichment. But someone received misremembered fragments of the Avant Times about freedom on Trump’s teleprompter — and on this unusual occasion, Trump read those fragments without hesitation.

Americans are used to these fragments. When Trump dismisses them, as he usually does, his domestic audience may feel uneasy that something that was important was omitted. But when Trump utters them, as he did on July 4, he reminds his global audience of how he abandoned the generous principles and emancipatory ideals that once made America fear, but also trust and admire. Trump’s speech demanded credit for a story that Trump considers a fool’s mistake. Trump is building an American future oriented towards authoritarian and corrupt states: Russia, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia. Democratic allies are treated, at best, as subjects to be intimidated and, at worst, as targets to be divided into new US territories.

To the extent that the decision rests with Trump, the United States that his speech celebrated on July 4 will no longer exist. Trump’s grotesque botch of the 250th anniversary of “We Hold These Truths” demonstrates the extent to which his leadership has already distanced the United States from its noblest past. Americans may not want to recognize what Trump has done to their position in the world. Such denial does not change reality. Norma Desmond’s final lover – and doomed narrator – delivers his verdict on the fading star’s descent from illusion to madness: “The dream to which she had clung so desperately had enveloped her. »

Americans have not clung desperately enough to their dream, but they too are now enveloped in something dark and diminished.

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