Some people really like the presidency and, more specifically, the politicians who seek to inhabit it. It has “transcended the boundary of enthusiasm and become a volatile strain of zealotry,” wrote The Guardian. Perhaps it’s a “cult” or even a “church.” A church needs a Messiah, after all, so some treat him as if he is “the One.”
But that was then and this is now. Then-candidate Barack Obama and his supporters attracted sustained criticism during the 2008 campaign for worshiping the future president as an icon. Though not yet eligible to vote, that was the first election I was old enough to engage with in a meaningful way, and I was repelled by that very phenomenon. I still vividly remember walking into my local Urban Outfitters, a true high school destination, and seeing shirts with Obama’s face plastered on them. Why would anyone want to wear a politician—a government employee—as a fashion statement?
How far we have come. President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing to put his face not on a shirt but on U.S. currency, pressing for the creation of a $250 bill that would feature him front and center. There are a few problems with the proposal, including that it is illegal without an act of Congress; current law prohibits putting any living person on “the bonds, securities, notes, or postal currency of the United States.” But on a deeper level, it is directly at odds with the spirit of the American project. Nothing better captures that tension than the anniversary it is supposed to commemorate.
America’s 250th is a celebration of the Founding, an experiment defined, at its core, by a rejection of monarchs and leader worship. It is why George Washington opposed the U.S. Mint putting his face on coinage—that sort of adulation was incompatible with what he was trying to build. He was not alone. As the plan was debated by the U.S. House, one early representative cautioned against “imitating the flattery and almost idolatrous practice of Monarchies with respect to the honor paid to their Kings, by impressing their images and names on their coins.” Lawmakers settled on the emblem of liberty instead.
It is hard to know if Washington et al. would be disappointed that U.S. currency has since evolved to feature past leaders who made significant contributions. But the law’s constraint—that they no longer be living—is in keeping with the reservations the first president expressed about indulgent reverence for the top office, and whoever is in it at any given time. America was leaving that nonsense behind. A $250 bill dedicated to the current president is the exact sort of egomaniacal vanity project the Founders detested.
Trump has not limited this idolatry to proposed currency. His face will be in a new edition of the U.S. passport, also supposedly in honor of America’s 250th. Walking around Washington, D.C., his portrait adorns federal buildings. Leaving dinner last month, upon exiting the restaurant, I was met with a giant banner of his face hanging on, ironically, the Justice Department. Private individuals choosing to make a politician a personality trait is unhealthy. Forcing the public to do it is grotesque.
I’d assume it brings some Trump allies and supporters joy that he is reminding people who is in power. Yet it comes at the expense of their dignity. Beyond offending the essence of the Founding, there is something fundamentally weak about worshiping a politician, particularly one whose movement claims to be populated by alpha males.
Many, like me, balked at people turning a politician into a fashion statement. Now we have a politician who would like to be an idol, featured on banknotes and travel documents, subsidized by the taxpayer. Must it be said which is more debasing?
