Source: Axios
This is a textbook example of symbolic power intensifying precisely as practical relevance collapses—Trump’s face on currency matters *because* cash is dying, not despite it, which inverts how we typically think about currency as a medium of exchange into currency as a political artifact and collectible. The real signal: we’re witnessing the final chapter of cash’s functional life, where its remaining value is almost entirely ceremonial and identity-based rather than transactional, which has profound implications for how governments will eventually transition populations toward digital currency systems where such symbolic gestures become impossible to perform.