Apparently, in a love affair with himself, POTUS Trump has recently decided to put his face on new American coinage. He has ordered his vassals to dedicate an upcoming new American coin design to himself. Even a beginning personality psychologist and the like would now seriously question whether Mr. Trump has a very deep inferiority complex that is a prime motivator in his life.
Upon learning that the U.S. government had already committed itself before his first term to printing a new $20 bill with American heroine Harriet Tubman’s picture on it, Trump tried to kill the project. He did not succeed, but did get it postponed until approximately 2030. Harriet Tubman’s picture is to replace that of Andrew Jackson on a new American $20 bill in the near future, unless Trump can find another loophole to try and kill the project.
Already, poet Maya Angelou’s visage is on a new American quarter distributed in 2022, as the first Black woman to be featured on a U.S. coin; Crispus Attucks, the first American patriot to die in the Boston Massacre, has been featured on a commemorative silver dollar minted in 1998; Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver graced a commemorative $5 coin in 1997; and Jackie Robinson was honored on a U.S. commemorative gold and silver $5 coin in 1997.
Trump, however, is not seeking a mere commemorative status coin. He wants his visage on an everyday—can’t get away from it—American coin, an American $1 coin. He has the U.S. Treasury Department currently reviewing a new draft design for a $1 U.S. coin featuring Donald Trump’s face on both sides of the coin for the country’s 250th anniversary in 2026.
The coin design currently features Trump’s profile on one side and a depiction of him raising a clenched fist on the other, accompanied by the words “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT”. That fist pump image is from a photo taken after an alleged assassination attempt against him in 2024.
Part of the problem is that, according to current American law, such a celebratory coin is illegal as long as the person whose image is used is still alive. There’s an existing 1866 federal law that says only deceased individuals can be featured on U.S. currency.
Trump’s people are claiming the projected new coin is authorized under the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which Trump signed into law. That law permits special $1 coin designs for the upcoming 250th U.S. anniversary, as long as the resulting coins are “emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial”. But vocal opponents of the project point out that the same 2020 law also bans portraits or busts of any living person on the reverse side of such coins.
The coin being proposed for Trump would have his visage on both sides. Looking at past history, the Trump people will probably find a way of forcing a Trump coin into production, regardless of any legalities.
Other attempts at getting his picture or image on federal properties include: Getting Washington Dulles International Airport renamed the Donald J. Trump International Airport; Getting his face carved on Mount Rushmore (The proposal has been dismissed repeatedly by the National Park Service as not physically possible due to a lack of stable rock), and changing the name of the National John Kennedy Center for the Arts to the Donald J. Trump Performing Arts Center.
As a counter proposal to some of this nonsense, congressional Democrats have proposed a bill to rename the federal prison nearest Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida as the Donald J. Trump Federal Prison. Seems logically poetic.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.