Like Julius Caesar before him, Trump gets his image on a coin [WP woke headline]
Story by Philip Kennicott
[Some of.the following article excerpts drip hatred and jealousy - not shared by OP. Much more snark at link below.]
"…The Trump gold coin would be issued under the U.S. Mint’s authority to create gold coins and silver medals without explicit congressional authorization. But its use of a portrait of the 47th president is an extraordinary break with centuries of democratic aversion to depicting living presidents on the nation’s money.
" On several occasions when Congress has authorized a particular series of coins, such as ones honoring the national parks, it has made explicit a prohibition against the use of images of living people or presidents. Experts in the history of U.S. currency can cite only one example of a coin bearing the image of a living president. That was in 1926 when the profile of Calvin Coolidge was placed next to and decorously behind that of George Washington on a sesquicentennial commemorative half dollar.
"… On the gold coin, Trump faces the viewer straight on, instead of the more traditional side angle or three-quarter view. For millennia, profile images on coins suggested an outwardly directed vision, a leader surveying the world and looking to the horizons for both danger and possibility. Trump’s image functions more like a confrontation: He stares down the viewer, forcing a choice between accepting his authority or becoming his enemy.
"On the coin’s reverse side, the drama of confrontation continues with an animated, even bellicose eagle whose clearly rendered talons echo the forward placement of Trump’s hands. (A recent design for a 250th anniversary dime features an eagle with only arrows and no olive branch, suggesting that the eagle is evolving into new symbolic territory as well.)"
"… So the distillation is both political and graphic, with the president emphasizing the raw power of a monarchical presidency not just with his image on the coins, but with the fact that he can override objections to make them. The CCAC refused even to review the gold coin in February after the Trump team submitted its proposal with only about an hour’s notice, according to members of the group. The head of the group, Donald Scarinci, said that the administration is acting “very aggressively insisting that we have to review this and they are insisting that if we don’t review it, they will make it anyway.” If they do that, he says, “they will be violating the law.”
"It all feels like an echo of one of the most notorious moments in the history of coinage, the minting of a coin in 44 B.C. bearing the profile of Julius Caesar with the abbreviated Latin words for “Caesar, Perpetual Dictator” on its face. Caesar is cited as the first living person to use his image on a Roman coin, and it was considered an outrageous violation of norms. One ancient historian, Cassius Dio, included the use of his image on coins among Caesar’s most egregiously self-aggrandizing actsleading up to his assassination.
[Is this author calling for violence and worse upon President Trump?]
“It is this moment when you see a transition from the collective ‘we,’ meaning the Republic, to the ‘them,’ to the individual, and you start seeing emperors putting image on coins,” Turco said.
[The petulant authority also puts intent to the words of Jesus!]:
"When Jesus said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” it was after being shown a Roman coin, with Caesar’s image on it. He wasn’t just answering a question about taxation and duty, but responding to a deeply rooted dislike of having to participate in the circulation of Caesar’s image [ays the article author about what Jesus was thinking!!!]. Coinage functions symbolically as a form of compliance. We carry the ruler’s image, hoard it, spend it, keep it in our pockets. It made Caesar ubiquitous."
… [moar spewing at link]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/like-julius-caesar-before-him-trump-gets-his-image-on-a-coin/ar-AA1Z2Uf3 [a Washingron Post article]
Very different tone than the one posted last bread: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/19/trump-coin-24-karat-gold
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