Donald Trump’s face is now on U.S. currency. The Mint rolled out the coin Wednesday to mark America’s 250th anniversary, showing Trump’s portrait next to the words “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
I wrote about the new coin on PJ Media yesterday, but I’ve actually got more to say on it.
If you were so inclined, a roll of 25 coins runs $61. A bag of 100 runs $154.50. 150,000 rolls and 50,000 bags were made available for purchase on the Mint’s website, and both sold out. Both listings now read “not currently in stock,” with more promised later.
You may know that federal law prohibits a sitting president from appearing on currency. As such, Democrats have been howling about this for months, insisting a sitting president has no business on U.S. currency without Congress signing off. That’s the argument they’re making in public. Their real complaint, I believe, is something a bit different. I think, from where they sit, all they see is a Republican president they impeached twice being honored on money, and, adding insult to injury, the coin sold so fast.
Here’s the thing. Part of me loves this purely for how much it will torture the Left. Trump’s face on legal tender, forever, whether they like it or not? Good. But I don’t think this was a smart move.
My worry is precedent.
Democrats have been itching for years to plaster Barack Obama’s name and image on everything they can, and I don’t love handing them a fresh justification to keep doing so. And this move by Trump could be used to justify future presidents putting their own faces on our money.
Now, it’s not exactly that simple. Even though it’s technically illegal for a living person’s likeness to appear on U.S. currency, there actually is precedent for a living president to appear on a semiquincentennial commemorative coin. A 1926 half dollar honored Calvin Coolidge while he was alive and in office, minted for the country’s sesquicentennial.
So, that eases my worry a bit. But it doesn’t erase it. Will they find ways to honor their heroes, dead or alive, out of spite? Barack Obama? George Floyd? Margaret Sanger? I hate to even speculate whom they may want to put on our money in retaliation.
Trump has done plenty to anger the Left, and most of the time their outrage is just pure theater. The White House ballroom has been wanted by administrations on both sides for years. Fixing the Reflecting Pool was overdue maintenance, not a scandal. I’m not even against his arch idea, though the scale strikes me as absurd, and perhaps a different location would be better. But, like the Democrats, I think Trump should pick his battles.
The problem is that Democrats scream about everything Trump does, even the stuff that shouldn’t be partisan at all, and it drains the credibility out of every complaint they actually have a point on. They feed the beast every time.
So my interest in this coin has less to do with whether it was a good idea and everything to do with watching the Left lose their minds over change. For me, that was worth the price of a roll.