Donald Trump is Norma Desmond

I love old movies and as regular readers know, I am a political junkie.  Thus, it was fun to come across a piece in the Washington Post that ties Donald Trump to one of the most self-obsessed and out of touch movie figures: Norma Desmond - the has been movie star - in the classic movie "Sunset Boulevard."  With American democracy barely having surived the four years of Trump's misrule in the White House and his failed coup attempt, the Post piece reminds us of the danger of having a delusional, malignant narcissist anywhere near the White House or any high government position ever again.  The ultimate irony is that Trump is a huge fan of the movie and Norma Desmond and yet is unable to see himself in her flawedand delusional character, most likely because of his own matching narcissism.   One can only hope that Trump's star will burn ot or, like Norma Desmond, he will end up going to prison (or an insane asylum).  Here are highlights from the article:

“No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” — Norma Desmond

Former president Donald Trump adores the 1950 classic “Sunset Blvd.,” the saga of a silent-screen legend eternally ready for her close-up and plotting a comeback long after her star has dulled. Trump has repeatedly praised the movie. He declared it “one of the greatest of all time” — on this, he will get little disagreement — and held screenings at the White House and Camp David.

But as Trump mounts a third presidential run amid the lacerating Jan. 6 report recommending four criminal charges against him, multiple other investigations and lawsuits, his election fraud-claiming endorsees losing in the midterms and a depleted inner circle, comparisons between his misfortunes and “Sunset’s” sunsetting Norma Desmond seem increasingly apt.

In a recent New York magazine story, Olivia Nuzzi draws parallels between Norma Desmond and her ardent fan at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lavish Palm Beach club and winter redoubt: “A washed-up star locked away in a mansion from the 1920s, afraid of the world outside, afraid it will remind him that time has passed.”

Norma’s baronial L.A. manor is a central character in the movie, “a big white elephant of a place” as Joe Gillis (William Holden) puts it, excessive, dated, dark and similar in style to Mar-a-Lago, a “Mediterranean-style villa adapted from the Hispano-Moresque style” according to its website. Norma stuffs her rooms with images of herself. Trump favors a similar decorating scheme, framed photos and painted likenesses.

“The whole enterprise exudes decadence like a stale, exotic perfume,” wrote the late critic Pauline Kael of the Billy Wilder movie, listed as the 12th greatest on the American Film Institute registry.

Trump “could never sit still for anything,” former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham writes in her memoir, but he sat “enthralled” watching “Sunset Blvd.” . . . . Grisham, who had never seen the seminal classic before, was “shocked at all of the similarities” between Trump and Desmond, the latter “obsessed with her looks” and “convinced that everyone loved her and lived in a fantasy world of her own making.” Grisham notes, “I’m sure that Trump has no clue — like none — how similar to him she was.”

Nancy Olson Livingston, 94, is the movie’s last surviving lead cast member. She portrayed talented script reader Betty Schaefer, Norma’s romantic rival. “Trump is interested in Norma Desmond, the greatest star of all and how dare anyone throw her away,” says Livingston in a phone interview from Beverly Hills. “His focus is on being a celebrity, about being talked about and followed and worshiped.” In her new memoir, “A Front Row Seat,” she writes that the movies that “survive through time are those that tell a compelling truth.”

Hollywood loves movies about itself, even ones about a delusional, egotistical, murderous has-been. . . . . Norma blossoms before the cameras. Trump, too. He has a proclivity for wearing television pancake so he is always ready for his close-up.

Norma has three husbands. Trump has three wives. Norma appreciates a younger, pulchritudinous partner in the dimple-chinned Joe, played by Holden, 19 years Swanson’s junior. Trump has a penchant for younger models, Melania nearly a quarter century his junior.

Norma has a weakness for massive jewelry, and gifts Joe with gold bibelots. Trump has a taste for gilding everything from domiciles to escalators. Norma brands her 1929 Isotta Fraschini 8A with her initials. Trump also likes to leave a mark, stamping his name onto all his properties.

Norma believes she knows better than those who came after her. “Those idiot producers. Those imbeciles! Haven’t they got any eyes? Have they forgotten what a star looks like? I’ll show them. I’ll be up there again, so help me!” In a June column, Trump biographer Timothy L. O’Brien recalls watching the Billy Wilder movie almost 20 years ago with the real estate dealer aboard his private plane. “Is this an incredible scene or what? Just incredible,” Trump whispered to him. O’Brien writes: “Trump doesn’t want anyone questioning his star power or impeding his storylines. Like Norma Desmond, he plans to show any doubters what he’s made of. He’ll be up there in the White House again, so help him.” . . . . “Trump is worried about being forgotten by the public. Norma is basically forgotten by the public.”

Both maintain complex relationships with the press. Norma dreams of being a bold-faced name again, yet gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, as herself, feasts on her misfortune, and breathlessly reports Norma’s ultimate downfall from the star’s bedroom. Trump simultaneously courts and filets the “fake news,” one of the greatest hits at his rallies.

And Norma becomes dead set, literally, on stopping Joe from returning to his previous life as a copy editor at the Dayton Evening Post. She insists on absolute loyalty, as does Trump, and turns on anyone who abandons her.

Grisham writes that Trump likes the classic film and others perhaps “because he saw the world as a movie, of which he was usually the star.” In “Sunset Blvd.,” Norma waits 20 years for a comeback. In Palm Beach, Trump hopes to wait only four.

Livingston remains mystified about Trump’s fascination with her film. “I’m surprised he likes it so much. He’s missing something in the movie, while he relates it to stardom,” she says. “Every character in ‘Sunset Blvd.’ is tragic.” Norma’s life is a lesson. “Movie stars did not have happy lives.”