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.<\/p>\n
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.
\nMr. 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: \u201cAs big as you can make it.\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\nThe United States is an absolute monarchy.
\nOne 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.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAgainst the founding spirit\u201d, to this day is still being repeatedly questioned by the academic.
\nDonald Trump has stepped on a century-old red line.
\nWithout 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.
\nThe 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.
\nAs skaridge, a member of the U.S. Citizens Mint Advisory Council, put it bluntly: \u201cNo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic Senator John Merkley put it more bluntly: \u201cMonarchs and dictators put their faces on coins, democratic leaders don’t.\u201d
\nThe irony is that this blatant show of personality is disguised as\u201cLegal\u201d all the time. Trump and his cronies stole the coat from a loophole in the system.
\nU. 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.
\nTreasury Secretary Peter Beach’s statement was even more adulatory: \u201cThere is no image more iconic for this coin than the portrait of President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.
\nMccreary, the\u201cExtreme size\u201d advocate who designed Trump’s private ballroom, and Harris, the 26-year-old committee member who voted\u201cYes,\u201d are the only bright labels on their public r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, was in charge of Trump’s personal portrait project.
\nThe other members are also mostly Trump’s conservative allies.
\nIt took just 15 minutes for a\u201cOne of US\u201d committee to pass unanimously. No mention was made of whether the coin was a national monument or a violation of American political tradition.
\nThere was only one focus: how to make the coin bigger and more to Trump’s liking.
\nWhat should have been a gatekeeper to the nation’s aesthetic and public values has become a sycophant for the president.
\nWhat’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, \u201cFor your information only,\u201d dismissed the century-old system of checks and balances.
\nA system of checks and balances that has worked for a century has been rendered useless by Trump’s will.
\nPutting 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.<\/p>\n
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.
\nAnd Republican lawmakers have proposed putting Trump’s face on the new $250 bill.
\nIn addition to the currency, Trump is using Washington’s iconic public institutions as a personal signboard.
\nThe Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts<\/p>\n
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.
\nFrom 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.
\nThe 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.
\nThe 7.62 cm gold coin is, in essence, a magic mirror that reflects the true background of American democracy today.
\nFor 250 years, the United States has proclaimed itself a\u201cCity on a hill\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.
\nThe 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.
\nHomepage image from the web<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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