It’s no secret that President Trump is planning to blanket the nation’s capital with monuments to himself designed to last long after he shuffles off this mortal coil. He’s already added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, even though he isn’t dead, and to the U.S. Institute of Peace, even though he’s fired everyone who worked there, and is waging war and overthrowing governments. Trump has redecorated much of the White House, and his eyes are now reportedly set on turning the Treaty Room into a guest bedroom with an en suite bathroom. He tore down the East Wing to make room for a massive ballroom, and he has submitted plans to build a giant Triumphal Arch.
All of these will be remembered as Donald Trump’s tributes to himself. But his latest scheme is even more brazen: He will soon appear on American currency. The U.S. Mint will distribute large commemorative $1 gold coins bearing Trump’s face, ostensibly to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, and there’s talk of putting him on the dime as well. On Thursday it was reported that his signature will appear on all paper currency going forward.
That’s right. His Richter scale scribble will soon be in every Americans’ wallet to remind us of this trauma for decades to come.
None of this is normal. To the extent the president has bothered to get approval for these projects, hand-picked sycophants on the various appointed boards eagerly signed off without question, and in other cases, he simply ordered it to be done. He had no right to unilaterally tear down part of the White House. As an historic building that belongs to the American people, there are processes that he should have followed. Now there’s nothing to be done about it, including the fact that he plans to put a humongous monstrosity in its place — a large-scale ballroom that will dwarf the People’s House.
I wrote about the gold coin a few months back, pointing out there’s a special meaning when leaders put themselves on money. It’s been the case, going back to the ancients, that monarchs and despots use this method to ensure their subjects understand they hold complete power and control the money supply. For this very reason, America has had a long-held norm of not featuring living presidents on the currency — until now. Our founders didn’t believe that power should rest with one person, and that however much was conferred on the president, it was temporary.
Under Trump, we have entered a new era in which the president of the United States can do virtually anything he chooses. Republicans in Congress enable his every wish, and they have demonstrated no desire to preserve the legislative branch’s own prerogatives. Constitutional restraints on presidential power are being tested in the courts, which have temporarily stopped some of Trump’s initiatives, but the Supreme Court has pretty much let him have his way, as pending cases glacially make their way to them for final disposition. When the justices did rule against one of his claims to unilateral power, finding he could not use emergency powers to single-handedly impose tariffs on other countries, his response was to slam his own appointees who voted in the majority. (Just last week, Trump said that those justices, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, “sicken” him.)
The president’s megalomania is becoming more pronounced by the day. In contrast to his first term, when he had to think about being re-elected and lacked a firm grasp on how to successfully wield political power, Trump the tyrant is now in full effect.
The president’s megalomania is becoming more pronounced by the day. In contrast to his first term, when he had to think about being re-elected and lacked a firm grasp on how to successfully wield political power, Trump the tyrant is now in full effect. In the domestic arena, he has strong-armed institutions, from law firms to universities, bending them to his will, and he has personally directed what he views as his personal police force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the military, to the streets of American cities to intimidate and brutalize the population.
Since the first of the year, Trump’s sense of omnipotence has manifested violently in foreign policy. He initiated the military operation to abduct the president of Venezuela, the success of which fed his already-massive ego to such an extent that he believes he is invincible. In a January interview with four New York Times reporters, the president was asked if there were any limits on his global powers. “Yeah, there is one thing,” he replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me… I don’t need international law.”
He meant that. On the heels of his Venezuelan triumph, Trump was ready to go to war with Iran, which he believed would be a similar cakewalk. But that conflict, which he launched on Feb. 28 in partnership with Israel, is proving difficult. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the New York Times on Saturday that Trump is committed to victory, and her words were revealing about what is driving him. “He understands that these sorts of things throughout history are ultimately judged by the outcome,” she said, “and the president knows that at the end of this, when we are able to declare that the Iranian terrorist regime no longer poses a threat to the United States militarily, that is going to be a legacy-making, history-marking moment.”
Trump is likely to escalate the war to achieve this goal. According to experts who study the psychological profiles of strongmen dictators, escalation in such situations is the norm. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall,” says that failure leads to what she calls “autocratic backfire,” a condition that “occurs when narcissistic leaders have insulated themselves from criticism by surrounding themselves with sycophants and loyalists. No one will tell them the truth, and religious collaborators tell them they are in office by divine will, and so they also end up believing their own propaganda about their invincibility, genius instincts, and infallibility.”
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Autocratic backfire is exactly what we are dealing with today. We don’t know how this will fully manifest, but the president’s apparent physical and mental deterioration, and the consequences of that, could easily be catastrophic.
Trump is playing for history now. He will turn 80 in June, and lately he has been admitting that he knows he can’t run for president again. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he claims he is popular — but it doesn’t seem he really cares all that much about public opinion, even from his most ardent MAGA followers. The wider movement, from its leaders in Congress to media figures to rank-and-file voters, are sharply divided over the war in Iran. He has largely thumbed his nose at them over the Epstein files. Now he spends a lot less time on the road, and he doesn’t appear to get the same lift from his fans that he used to.
What’s really exciting him now is something familiar: having his name on buildings and monuments, and his face and signature on money. It’s a return to form for the real estate mogul who slapped his name on everything from hotels to neckties to steaks; in his beginning is his end, you might say, with apologies to T.S. Eliot.
The idea has been planted in Trump’s head that, long after he’s gone, he will be remembered as one of the world’s greatest leaders. So everything he is doing now is about legacy, and with a malignant narcissist who knows that he may not be long for this earth, the danger that comes with those realizations is acute.
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The president often says he can do anything and he’s always been right about everything. This means he believes he can literally do no wrong, and therefore, he has no obligation to consider anything before he makes a decision. He said it out loud on Thursday in reference to a peace agreement with Iran: “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”
Trump doesn’t care because he’s convinced he will be remembered as a monumental figure who changed the world. He may be right about that — but it’s unlikely he’ll be inducted in the pantheon of those who are seen as great successes. Great failures can change the world as well, and not in a good way. Some of those are even remembered as the leaders who brought down great empires with their own hubris and egotism.
But Trump will no doubt go to his grave believing that he’ll be seen as the greatest president in American history. After all, would his signature be on the money if he weren’t?
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