With less than a whole month in office under his belt, there’s simply no denying that Donald Trump’s unhinged and largely unchecked power grabs are officially going off the rails — with his newest target shaping up to be none other than the US penny.
Yes, I mean the coin.
In a bizarre announcement on his Truth Social echo chamber that came just after his team lost the Super Bowl in a bad kind of way, the US president declared that he has instructed the US Treasury to stop producing the one-cent coins, in an effort to reduce “waste.”
At first glance, the move is almost comical.
Who really cares that much about the penny, right?
You should…
The United States Constitution doesn’t leave a lot of room for individual interpretations when it comes to any legal authority surrounding US currencies: “The Congress shall have power … to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof.”
Congress. NOT the president.
Donald Trump, of course, swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” yet, he’s already making it pretty clear that he didn’t really mean it.
As reported by The Associated Press:
President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin. … Trump had not discussed his desire to eliminate the penny during his campaign. But Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency raised the prospect in a post on X last month highlighting the penny’s cost.”
One’s thoughts on whether or not the US penny is useful or not is not really what’s at stake here — the foundation of the US government and Constitution is.
While I certainly have no way of getting inside Donald Trump’s head to pick apart his thought process on the matter — nor would I want to if I could — it’s nearly impossible to not feel as though Donald is actively testing the limits to which he can push, play with, and dismantle the governing document of this nation.
It’s a simple penny today. There is no guarantee that it will only be a simple penny tomorrow.
Featured image via The Resistance Report Gallery