Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in 1950's "Sunset Boulevard" (Creative Commons)
In the classic 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard,” aging silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) pretends that Hollywood is still as it was when she was at her peak, creating a grotesque charade that obscures unpleasant realities. Drawing from rumors that this is President Donald Trump’s favorite movie, conservative writer David Frum wrote in The Atlantic on Sunday that Trump’s 4th of July speech similarly ignored the ugly truth about the Republican’s second term.
“The very first sentence of the document honored on July 4 invoked ‘a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,’” Frum wrote. “Throughout their history, Americans have been highly conscious of the opinions of others about their experiment in republican government. In his first July 4 message to Congress in 1861, Abraham Lincoln declared the fate of the American Union a contest of urgent interest to ‘the whole family of man.’ 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 upon it.”
Yet Trump’s second term has been marked by efforts that do not reflect the best in America’s character, according to Frum. He singled out four acts of imperialist aggression, two threatened and two actualized. The threatened aggression includes bluster toward Canada, referring to America’s northern neighbor as “the 51st state” and ominously proclaiming that he is going to conquer Greenland from Denmark. He also has waged actual wars against Venezuela and Iran.
“Trump’s preferred rhetorical style on such occasions is to brag about the strength of the U.S. military, how nobody can equal it, how it crushes all before it,” Frum explained. “He reportedly tells his inner circle that he personally is a more powerful warlord than Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. The authentic Trump does not care about any ideals beyond national fearsomeness and personal enrichment. But somebody got some ill-remembered fragments from the Before Times about freedom onto Trump’s teleprompter—and on this unusual occasion, Trump read the fragments without balking.”
He added that, much as the fictional Desmond deluded herself into believing the world was applauding her, the real Trump and his supporters refuse to admit that the president’s actions have made him unpopular rather than popular throughout the world.
“Americans may not wish to acknowledge what Trump has done to their standing in the world,” Frum wrote. “Such denial does not change reality. Norma Desmond’s last lover—and doomed narrator—delivers a verdict on the fading star’s descent from delusion into madness: “The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”
He concluded, “Americans have not clung to their dream nearly desperately enough, but they too are now enfolded in something dark and diminished.”
The event, which was also controversial for Trump’s seemingly flippant behavior toward Gold Star Families, is not the first move associated with Trump to attract the conservative’s ire. In June 2025, Frum blasted Trump for pulling America toward a Middle Eastern war with his seemingly reckless foreign policy.
"President Donald Trump is being pulled toward war in the Middle East by his predator's eye for a victim's weakness and his ego's need to claim the work of others as his own," Frum wrote. "But since his 'unconditional surrender' social-media post on Tuesday, other Trump instincts have asserted themselves — above all, his fear of responsibility."
He added, "Trump enjoys wielding power. He flinches from accountability. Days ago, Trump seemed to hunger for entry into Israel's war. A dramatic victory seemed poised to tumble into somebody's lap. Why not his? But as the hours passed, Trump reconsidered. Instead of acting, he postponed. He said that a decision would come within 'two weeks.'"
Two months earlier, Frum claimed that Trump does not understand how energy prices work.
"On March 31, the national average price of gasoline at the pump surpassed $4, the highest level since the post-pandemic shocks of 2022," Frum wrote. "One-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas usually flows through the Strait (or Hormuz), but hasn't since Iran began impeding the waterway in early March. Yet Trump continues to insist that Iran's partial closure of the strait isn't a problem. Markets don't agree with Trump, and neither do his poll numbers."
He concluded, "How did Trump get Hormuz so wrong? The answer reveals one of Trump's most characteristic and most fateful mistakes: his steadfast refusal to acknowledge that Americans live in a world economy."