King Trump Wants to Put His Picture on US Passports to Commemorate 250 Years of American Democracy

In an attempt to equate himself with the government, an authoritarian leader usually plasters his own image over anything and everything in the country, particularly anything relating to state authority. Donald Trump has been draping his image over federal buildings, is trying to put it on a coin—and now wants to have his face glaring out at you from your passport.

The Bulwark broke the story:

State Department is close to finalizing a radical redesign of the U.S. passport to include a picture of President Donald Trump, The Bulwark has learned from two sources with knowledge of the redesign, including one who shared images currently under consideration.

The redesign is ostensibly part of a larger celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence. It comes as the Treasury Department prepares to produce coins featuring Trump’s image—both a controversial $1 coin in general circulation and an “as large as possible” commemorative gold coin—and as the National Park Service emblazons Trump’s face on its park passes. Both of those redesigns were justified as being part of the 250th anniversary celebration.

According to the images of the passport redesign provided to The Bulwark, the inside cover of the new State Department-issued document will feature a scowling Trump—taken from his second inaugural portrait—superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, as well as the president’s signature in gold. …

No modern U.S. passport has featured the image of a sitting president, and no foreign passport has featured “the head of state of any country,” Kolla said. While passports used to bear the signatures of the officials in whose name they were issued, American passports are issued in the name the secretary of state, not the president.

The sickening irony is that many of these things are being done under cover of America’s 250th anniversary. But that means that, to celebrate 250 years of America’s rejection of absolute monarchy, we will be putting one man’s face on everything in our government, announcing the accession of what is in effect a new monarch.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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