Trump's Illegal $250 Bill: A Micro-History of Autocracy

A Story of Corruption, Political Interference, Leader Worship, and Lawlessness

With the Donald Trump administration engaging in so many lawless actions, the news that they now want to print a $250 bill with Trump’s face on it, supposedly to commemorate the 250^th anniversary of our country, may elicit a shrug or eyeroll. “Whatever, more egotistic craziness,” we might be inclined to think.

Every day, there is some new blatant violation of human rights, international and domestic rule of law, or reminders that quaint democratic ideas of conflict of interest, accountability, or public service have no place in Trump’s America. Blatant corruption, kidnapping a foreign head of state to plunder his country’s oil, killing innocents on fishing boats, turning the Department of Justice into the leader’s personal vendetta machine, disappearing people into domestic and foreign gulags, and a scheme to use potentially our tax dollars to pay off thugs who on Jan. 6, trashed the Capitol and assaulted police officers are just some of the offenses.

I want to call your attention anyway to the matter of Trump’s face on a $250 bill, because the circumstances of this proposal reveal important truths about autocratic governance.

First of all, it is illegal to feature living persons on U.S. currency. That means special legislation must be proposed, and passed, by Congress, to allow Trump’s desire to be realized. And that means enablers must play their roles.

Congressional Loyalty Tests: A Favorite Autocratic Game

A “strongman” is nothing without his accomplices and enablers, and that includes lawmakers whose status in the party is dependent on abasing themselves to satisfy the whims of the increasingly grandiose and needy leader.

Even old-school dictators such as Benito Mussolini purged their parliaments to have a cast of sycophants ready to pass their “laws,” punish their enemies, and glorify them 24/7.

Enter Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC). “Wilson Introduces Legislation to Print Trump on $250 Bill,” he proclaims proudly on his website, hoping to gain points for fidelity.

The Treasury Department: Purge the Principled so that the Corrupt May Prevail

Yet lawmakers are not enough. Autocratic projects also require backing within government agencies, in this case the Treasury Department. There’s a reason autocrats purge such agencies of civil servants who uphold ideas of ethical conduct and impartiality and replace them with individuals such as Brandon Beach (U.S. Treasurer) and Mike Brown (his senior advisor), who, as the Washington Post reports, “repeatedly urged staff at the agency’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes of the note.”

There was one problem. The director of the printing bureau, Patricia Solimene, a 24- year Army veteran and the first female director of the bureau, would not go along with the plan, telling Beach and Brown that “we’re not authorized to do this” and pointing out the numerous legal and procedural obstacles to its implementation.

So Solimene was suddenly reassigned. “The buck stops here,” she wrote in her goodbye email. But it was Solimene who was stopped so that the $250-buck project could continue.

This corruption explains the sickly smile exhibited by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent when he defended the project to reporters. Bessent has outdone himself as a sycophant, expertly spinning all of Trump’s unorthodox and destructive economic policies as productive and positive. His Treasury Department already announced that Trump’s signature would replace that of the Treasury Secretary on all new printed currency, meaning that Bessent effaced himself to satisfy the ego of his Leader.

Remaking the World in the Image of the Leader

Given that one of his main goals for the presidency is making money off of holding public office, it is appropriate that Trump put his face on U.S. money. Having his face on commemorative currency is part of a mission to reorient the 250^th anniversary of our country around himself and continue to develop his personality cult. One of the canons of personality cults, valid for a century, is that the leader must be not only omnipotent but omnipresent: his visage must be everywhere, and popular culture and commodity culture must be appropriated for the cause. Common objects, used every day, circulate the image of the leader.

Vladimir Putin understood this, and the Kremlin approved or at least tolerated all kinds of consumer objects with his image. A gold IPhone was among them, so of course, Putin’s faithful partner, Trump, has to have one too.

Putin also had a Kremlin-authorized calendar, with a Putin for every month. Such paper calendars are no longer as popular, so Trump has followed Narendra Modi in creating a personality cult app. In Orwellian fashion, Trump’s app is mandatory for all government employees, meaning it is automatically installed on government-issued phones.

So millions of civil servants will see daily content that reporters are cataloguing as “campaign-style content,” but is actually personality cult material. When you press the pre-installed “text President Trump” button, a message appears that is pre-populated with Trump praise: “Greatest President Ever!”

All of this is deeply pathetic, but it is also deeply autocratic. It is also symptomatic that the image of Trump selected for the $250 bill is very similar to Trump’s new official portrait –which closely resembles his 2023 mug shot from his indictment on racketeering and other charges. The idea of celebrating a momentous anniversary of our country with an image that celebrates Trump’s identity as a lawless individual fits the autocratic sensibility perfectly.

As Trump’s popularity continues to tank, and his failures and malfeasance become more evident, all of these developments and processes will deepen. Whether or not Trump’s face ends up appearing on a $250 bill, the corruption, political interference, and loyalty tests will continue.