To be honest, I begin this post in somewhat of a quandary. I know where I want to get with it, but as I gave that some thought, it occurred to me that many people do not understand the difference between a “head of state” and a “head of government,” and so I should touch on that first. Here’s a teaser: I’m going to get to the fact that the United States Treasury is considering minting a $1 dollar coin to commemorate the 250th anniversary (called the semiquincentennial) next year of the independence of the country from the tyrannical rule of a monarch with not one but two likenesses of Donald Trump on it. Let that sink in.

All governments have two positions or roles at the top: the head of state, who represents the country at home and abroad, often in a symbolic or ceremonial capacity, and the head of government, responsible for the day-to-day operations and policies of the country. This separation is seen most clearly in the United Kingdom, which includes the countries of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, each of which have their own parliament or national assembly, with England’s parliament at Westminster considered primary for the kingdom. In the UK, the monarch (King Charles III) is the head of state, while the prime minister (Sir Keir Starmer) is the head of government.

Some republics maintain this separation of roles, even in the absence of a monarch. A good example is France, where a directly elected president (Emmanuel Macron) serves as the head of state and handles the foreign policy and relations of the country, while the prime minister (Sébastien Lecornu) serves as the head of government, managing its domestic and economic policy.

In the United States, our founders combined the roles (we are not unique in that regard). The president of the United States is both the national symbol (ceremonial head of state) and the chief executive (managerial head of government) responsible for implementing laws enacted by the legislature (a parliament, or in the case of the US, Congress).

Heads of state typically are symbols of national identity, and nowhere is this more clear than the United Kingdom. What it means to be “British” (which refers to the island the kingdom sits on, Great Britain) is modelled by the monarch as head of state. Some would prefer that were not the case, as they had no say in choosing the monarch; they are called republicans, which is not to be confused with the conservative US political party; republicans, in this context, would simply prefer to vote for their head of state rather than have him or her be “chosen” by birthright (and order) in a certain, eminent family (the Windsors in the case of the UK). Those who like having a king or queen are called monarchists. In the interest of full disclosure, Wilkinsons are proud monarchists and fought alongside the British Redcoats against George Washington and his Continental Army of rebellious colonists. We picked the wrong side on that one.

I personally like the concept of having a national symbol that is above the fray of national politics, a person we can look to in order to define who we are as a people. I suppose the closest thing we’ve got to that is “Uncle Sam.” The problem, as I see it, is that when you combine the roles of national symbol and executive officer of the government, the political persuasion of the chief executive becomes (or is at least presented as) the national character. The office of the US president is partisan, and while it does represent a majority of the people in a given election cycle, there will always be some for whom the office holder represents the opposite of what they believe and who they are.

Here in the United States, we chose to declare our independence from that system, because equality meant, and means, that who we are as a people ought not to be defined by an un-elected royal family member who fell into the job of defining our national character as a birthright. And I broadly support that rejection of monarchical tyranny. But our founders unintentionally created a new kind of tyranny – the tyranny of the majority. So our “head of state” is the partisan politician that got the most votes in the last election, and while, under a democratic system, this means he gets to run the government according to his and his party’s political views, which is fair, it should not mean he gets to define what it means to be an American.

And he certainly should not appear on our money as a national symbol.

Congress in 2020 passed bipartisan legislation, signed by President Trump during his first term, that authorizes the Treasury Secretary to issue “during the one-year period beginning January 1, 2026, $1 dollar coins with designs emblematic of the U.S. semiquincentennial.” To fulfill this mandate, the Treasury Department is considering producing a one-dollar coin featuring President Donald Trump, Treasury confirmed last Friday!

The draft design of the coin, which was overseen by the Office of the US Treasurer Brandon Beach, features Trump’s profile on one side of the coin, while the opposite side depicts Trump with a clenched fist in front of an American flag alongside the words FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.

This is not American. Donald Trump no more represents what it means to be an American, what values we hold, what we (and by that I mean all of us) hope for the future, and how we interpret, embrace, and learn from the past 250 years, than I, an overweight, bald, disabled man in a wheelchair, represent what it means to be an Olympic athlete (or any kind of athlete for that matter).

When we, as a rag tag collection of colonies, said “no” and “enough” to King George III of Great Britain and Ireland (then), we were rejecting the idea of kings as much as the King himself. And while King Charles may appear on British pound notes despite partisan differences in that country, he is neither a representative of the Left nor the Right. He is the head of state. The same cannot be said for our head of state, who quite obviously represents a partisan political viewpoint.

This is, without a doubt, the most transparently undemocratic and frankly un-American thing I have seen (to date) from a president and an administration that seems hell-bent on destroying norms that have served us well for the most part. It is tyrannical.

And I’m sure the irony is lost on them that this coin would be issued to commemorate the semiquincentennial of our rejection of tyranny.