3/27/26

WITH THE SWIPE OF A SHARPIE,
TRUMP DEBASES THE DOLLAR

DONALD TRUMP, the American unhinged president. PHOTO CREDIT: Screenshot of White House video

ONE QUESTION about adding Donald Trump’s signature to the nation’s paper currency is whether it will be the pubic-hair version that he used to sign his birthday card to the late pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
     Or will the signature be the longer scrawl that the unhinged president of the United States typically uses for executive orders and other official documents.
     Either way, placing Trump’s name on bills instantly will transform American currency into dirty money.
     Whether it’s a meager $1 bill or a hefty $100 note, the bill with Trump’s signature will defile wallets and purses across the nation and, indeed, the world, which values American cash. 
     The move, announced March 26, is the latest instance of Trump graffiti, plastering his name and image on official buildings, coins and ships.
     There’s the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace, the Donald J. Trump and  John F. Kennedy Center Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the Donald J. Trump 24-karat gold commemorative coin and the “Trump-class” battleships being designed by the Navy.
     You can imagine that if Trump weren’t the elected president, he would be some crazed man running around the nation’s capital with a bag full of cans of spray paint he'd use to defile national monuments.

AT THIS POINT, you are correct to ask whether any of this name-tagging is important.
     After all, Trump’s long list of actual crimes and misdemeanors is far more consequential.
     There’s the illegal war he launched with Israel against Iran and now is trying squirm out of, after killing many civilians and, at last count, 13 American soldiers.
     There are the January 6 insurrectionists he’s pardoned, the Gestapo-style “agents” he’s unleashed against immigrants and U.S. citizens, the climate-saving efforts trashed, the U-turn on civil rights and the poisoning of American manners and culture.
     "Good. I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump crowed on his social media platform after the death of Robert Mueller, the storied war hero, FBI director and special counsel, who carefully investigated Trump’s sins during his first campaign.
     I’m still shocked at the cruelty of Trump’s remarks, although by now we know there is no bottom to his hatred.    

  IT'S WORTH THINKING  a little about the money-signing gambit, because it touches on several of Trump’s shortcomings that have dire consequences on national and world affairs.
   The Trump signature itself hints an egotistical brain. It’s an outsized jumble of Sharpie strokes meant to dominate whatever piece of paper on which it lands. 
      The signature drew a lot of attention last year when the Wall Street Journal disclosed that it had appeared in a collection of good wishes compiled by Epstein’s associates in 2003 for the sex ghoul’s 50th birthday.

     The image (see above)  showed the outline of a naked woman, encompassing a birthday message; Trump’s ragged signature appeared as pubic hair. Trump denied the message and signature were his.
     Indeed, as reporters looked into the history of Trump’s signatures, there were two versions. He tended to sign his first name, ending with a line trailing off to the right, as in the Epstein birthday card. Whereas Trump’s more formal signature  appeared to replicate his full name.
     Below is a screenshot of a Times compilation of "Donald" signatures, as in the Epstein card.

      Here is the signature using Trump's full name, via Wikipedia.

 In either version, Trump has liked to use a Sharpie pen, which produces broad, thick lines, all the better to make a splash.

TRUMP’S OBSESSION WITH SHARPIES came into focus March 26 during a cabinet meeting where the Iran war and other life-and-death matters were being batted around by Trump and his sycophants.
     But, as he often does, Trump detoured from subjects of state to expound for five minutes or so on the wonders of something else, in this case the Sharpie and its bargain-basement price. 
     “I came here,” Trump explained to the cabinet, according to the New York Times. “They have thousand-dollar pens, and you know, you hand pens out, you’re signing and you hand them out. You’re handing them with all these people, sometimes you have 30 or40 people and they were $1,000 a piece.”
     Whereas, he said that Sharpies go for $5. Of course, even when it comes to pens, Trump cannot be believed. The New York Times said some  previous presidents used pens made by A.T. Cross, a Rhode Island headquartered company, which retail not for a grand, but between $99 to $270 each.
     Sleep well, America. Trump, who demolished the East Wing of the White House so it can be replaced with a $400 million ballroom (albeit funded by private donors maybe looking for favors) knows a good deal on not-so-fine writing instruments.

THERE ARE LESSONS, which we already know, but are forced to relearn day after day.
     The unhinged leader of what is still the free world cannot discuss something important without drifting into  something that’s not.
     And even then, he can’t tell the truth, even about the cost of something that nobody cares about, except a deranged man who wants to put his mark, his face and his name on your money, your buildings and anything else that comes into his not-so-Sharpie mind.
    Fortunately, there’s a No Kings Day demonstration near you Saturday (March 28).

DESIGN of commemorative coin featuring Trump's image.