On March 19 local time, the United States Commission of Fine Arts unanimously approved a plan to break with the 100-year convention: to issue a 24-carat gold commemorative coin for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, only a portrait of current President Donald Trump will be printed on the front.
The committee members, handpicked by Trump, didn’t discuss how to carry the spirit of Independence and democratic memory. Instead, they focused on one thing: making the gold coin with Trump’s face as big as possible.
Mr. mccreary, the Vice Chairman of the committee and the exclusive designer of Mr. Trump’s private ballroom, bluntly called for a diameter of 3 inches: “As big as you can make it.”.
At 3 inches, 7.62 centimeters, it is nearly three times the diameter of an ordinary 1-ounce coin and covers the palm of the hand with an open palm. The heavy gold coin, bearing a portrait of Trump, also runs over 250 years of American democracy.
The United States is an absolute monarchy.
One of the central demands of the Thirteen Colonies that seceded from the British Crown in 1776 was to get rid of the arbitrary symbol of the king with his face on his money. In 1866, the Coinage Act laid down the iron law that no living person should appear on currency in circulation. There is a 100-year-old political consensus that even in the case of commemorative coins, don’t touch the Red Line.
The last time someone crossed the line was in 1926, when Coolidge put his face on the coin alongside Washington’s. Only a half-step cross-border, was scolded as the United States public opinion“Against the founding spirit”, to this day is still being repeatedly questioned by the academic.
Donald Trump has stepped on a century-old red line.
Without any founding fathers to set it off, the one-man portrait occupies position C, and the original design even features his assassinated Fist and campaign slogan on the back.
The whole coin, from beginning to end, has nothing to do with 250 years of American independence, freedom and democracy. It is more like a Trump photo album.
As skaridge, a member of the U.S. Citizens Mint Advisory Council, put it bluntly: “No democratically elected nation on Earth since 1776 has issued a coin with his image on it during a leader’s term of office-only a king would do that.”
Democratic Senator John Merkley put it more bluntly: “Monarchs and dictators put their faces on coins, democratic leaders don’t.”
The irony is that this blatant show of personality is disguised as“Legal” all the time. Trump and his cronies stole the coat from a loophole in the system.
U. S. law does state that a living president can not use currency, but the secretary of the Treasury has the power to authorize the issuance of non-circulating 24-karat gold commemorative coins. Treasury Secretary Bessant, a Trump loyalist, stepped right into the breach, giving the green light all the way around the 100-year ban.
Treasury Secretary Peter Beach’s statement was even more adulatory: “There is no image more iconic for this coin than the portrait of President Trump.”
And the United States Commission of Fine Arts, the gatekeeper, has long since been fully privatized by Trump. The supposedly independent federal agency was overhauled in October, firing all six of its original members and replacing them with Trump’s handpicked loyalists.
Mccreary, the“Extreme size” advocate who designed Trump’s private ballroom, and Harris, the 26-year-old committee member who voted“Yes,” are the only bright labels on their public résumés, was in charge of Trump’s personal portrait project.
The other members are also mostly Trump’s conservative allies.
It took just 15 minutes for a“One of US” committee to pass unanimously. No mention was made of whether the coin was a national monument or a violation of American political tradition.
There was only one focus: how to make the coin bigger and more to Trump’s liking.
What should have been a gatekeeper to the nation’s aesthetic and public values has become a sycophant for the president.
What’s more, the citizens’ Mint Advisory Committee explicitly refused to put the plan on the agenda of the debate in February this year, only for the Treasury Department to simply ignore it, “For your information only,” dismissed the century-old system of checks and balances.
A system of checks and balances that has worked for a century has been rendered useless by Trump’s will.
Putting his face on a 250th-anniversary coin was never a whim; it was the culmination of Trump’s long-held ambition to tie personal symbols deeply to national symbols.
Last October, he pushed the Treasury to design a commemorative dollar coin with his image on both sides, even though the law explicitly forbids a living president from appearing on a dollar coin.
And Republican lawmakers have proposed putting Trump’s face on the new $250 bill.
In addition to the currency, Trump is using Washington’s iconic public institutions as a personal signboard.
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The United States Institute of Peace was renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace. Ironically, three months later, he launched the war on Iran.
From naming navy ships to visa programs for wealthy foreigners to government-run prescription drug websites to federal savings accounts for children, Trump has made his name in almost every public sphere, he has carved his own symbols into.
The national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States has become the perfect stage for him to create a personality cult.
The 7.62 cm gold coin is, in essence, a magic mirror that reflects the true background of American democracy today.
For 250 years, the United States has proclaimed itself a“City on a hill” and a model of democracy, accusing other countries of personality cults and dictatorships. Now its own president is doing what the country has been criticizing for a century.
The 250-year-old democratic system was already in tatters when the president was able to manipulate loopholes and put his own will above the country’s traditions and consensus.
The United States overthrew a king on the other side of the Atlantic in 250 years, but on the occasion of the 250th anniversary, hand-delivered a new king living in the White House.
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