People say that POTUS is a raging narcissist for slapping his name or face onto anything that stands still long enough. And clearly there’s at least a little ego involved in the need to embroider everything from passports and perfume to savings bonds and Bibles with the DJT monogram. But more and more, I’m convinced that’s just how the man trolls.
Take the brand new Trump dollar coin. It’s exactly what it sounds like—a coin, with a value of one dollar, bearing you-know-who’s face. It’s being minted by the United States Treasury in honor of America’s semiquincentennial and naturally, it’s gold. (Well, gold-colored, anyway. The Mint says it’s mostly copper with some zinc, manganese, and nickel thrown in. So basically a bigger penny with a spray tan.)
As one might imagine, Trump putting his mug on circulating currency caused a predictable uproar, not least because traditionally, that honor has required being too dead to appreciate it. Despite actual federal laws restricting the appearance of living people on American cash, the Trump administration found enough wiggle room in the commemorative coin rules to proceed.
While the legal wrangling was interesting enough, the feds apparently decided to up the ante. Yesterday, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach issued a challenge to Americans—on TikTok, no less—to go out and get a roll of Trump dollar coins, drive down to your “favorite liberal coffee shop” and spend your shiny new tokens there so that you can “watch their heads explode.”
I am not even making that up.
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This is where we are. An actual senior federal official encouraging patriots to proudly go forth into their communities and [*checks notes*] psychologically terrorize their minimum-wage neighbors with commemorative currency. Imagine Eisenhower interrupting a National Security Council meeting to brainstorm ways to make Adlai Stevenson supporters cry at the five-and-dime.
Kind of surprisingly, people are down for it.
Before you get too excited, I’ll point out that pissing off progressives is going to cost you a pretty penny. Right now, a roll of twenty-five Trump dollars is going for $61. Yes, you read that correctly. For the low, low price of just $61 (plus shipping), you can purchase $25. Probable liberal fury included!
To be fair, the Mint routinely charges premiums for specially packaged or limited-edition collectible coins, and presumably nobody buying them expects to make a killing at the local Coinstar machine. But there’s something exquisitely American about paying $36 extra for the privilege of aggravating the blue-haired barista with the CAPITALISM IS A DEATH CULT bumper sticker on her Subaru.
The coins are already in circulation (although currently unavailable for purchase on the official government site) and, according to Beach, will be widely distributed through banks next month. Which of course makes a girl wonder: how exactly is that going to work? Because banks can’t mark up ordinary money that’s already out in the wild. Can you picture your friendly Wells Fargo teller offering you a special deal on fifties this week? Or charging you $75 to withdraw a hundy? Presumably anyone will be able to waltz into their nearest branch and request, say, $25 worth of Trump dollars in exchange for [*quickly calculates*] $25.
Also, will Trump bucks be kept in their own little special velvet-lined drawers? Will Democratic dollar-counters be forced to distribute them—or will there be a conscientious-objector option? Will tellers be trained to ask, “Would you like your cash in live or dead presidents?”
And finally, there’s the whole coin-format conundrum. America has attempted to make the dollar coin happen for the last half-century. We’ve given it Susan B. Anthony. We’ve given it Sacagawea. We’ve given it a rotating cast of deceased leaders and each time, the public responded the way it always does: by dropping them in a junk drawer to live out their days with the dead batteries, some dried-out pens, and a single mystery key. Now the government is betting that the thing that will finally make dollar coins catch on is spite.
And actually? They might not be wrong.
POLL REDUX FOR FINICKY PHONES:
Are you up for Beach’s liberal coffee shop challenge?
I’m SO down!
Might be fun to try once.
Hell no. Triggered libs trigger me.
Sorry, I’m British.
*combo/unsure/other
Do you not understand these are not issued for circulation? Are you truly that clueless?
I hadn’t heard of this! “So basically a bigger penny with a spray tan.” So funny!
I’ll certainly buy some!!