Via the AP: US Mint can begin producing Trump commemorative gold coin after arts commission approves design.
A federal arts commission on Thursday approved the final design for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing President Donald Trump’s image to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday on July 4.
The vote by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members are supporters of the Republican president and were appointed by him earlier this year, was without objection. It clears the way for the U.S. Mint to begin production on the coin, whose size and denomination are still under discussion.
“As we approach our 250th birthday, we are thrilled to prepare coins that represent the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, and there is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President, Donald J. Trump,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement.
[…]
Federal law says no living president can appear on U.S. currency. But Megan Sullivan, the acting chief of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, said the Treasury secretary has authority to authorize the minting and issuance of new 24-karat gold coins, which Scott Bessent has used to get around that prohibition and put Trump on a coin.
The only places that I can think of where sitting heads of state are placed on coins are monarchies and dictatorships. Perhaps there is an example out there of a democracy doing this, but I would be surprised if there was one.
The association of an elected leader, who should be, by definition, an ephemeral figure, as a symbol of the government while that person is in office, is an undue and dangerous conflation of personal power with the permanence of the constitutional government he or she serves.
To be honest, I am far more persuaded that we should venerate no leader in such a fashion than I am that we should venerate sitting politicians. Indeed, in a democratic republic that constitutionally eschews aristocratic titles and the like, there is an argument to be made that no person should be so elevated.
If one is to be honored in such a fashion, I think it requires a lengthy distance between time in office and the moment of engraving one’s name or image onto buildings, coins, and the like. Even then, I would prefer only honoring people like the Founders and people who did major feats, like saving the Union. I am not sure, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt did anything that should have led him to be on Mount Rushmore, nor did we need to name airports after relatively recent presidents.
Indeed, as we know, and as we reminded this week, humans are flawed, and there is always a risk of beatifying persons who ultimately don’t deserve such honors.
Ultimately, I would prefer a veneration of ideas over people. But I digress, and one’s mileage may vary on these topics.
Back to Dear Leader.
“I think the president likes big things,” said Commissioner James McCrery II, who was the architect on Trump’s design proposal for a 90,000-square-foot (8,360-square-meter) ballroom addition to the White House. The fine arts commission approved that proposal at its February meeting.
Harris told McCrery she agreed with him. She works in the White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of the Oval Office.
“I think the larger the better. The largest of that circulation, I think, would be his preference,” Harris said, speaking of Trump.
Yes, that all sounds quite healthy for a democratic republic’s leader.
