There are men who put their name on buildings. Donald Trump has now put his face in the passport, which is the document Americans hand to border agents in foreign countries who did not vote for him and are now receiving his photograph anyway.
The new United States passport, unveiled Friday, features a photo of Trump on an interior page next to the Founding Fathers, a group of men who would have found this arrangement instructive. According to Fox News, Trump announced it on Truth Social: “The U.S.A.’s New Passport, which says, ‘Welcome, but be good!’ President DJT.” He signed a travel document. With advice. For strangers.
The phrase “be good” has been mocked widely, per HuffPost, as the most embarrassing thing printed in an American passport, which is impressive given that passports have existed since 1856 and Trump managed this in a single weekend. The German border official who received the first “be good” passport on Saturday morning did not ask for the guidance and has presumably filed it accordingly.
This is the man who has already stamped his name onto federal buildings, battleships, the Kennedy Center (until a judge removed it), the Reflecting Pool (now green), and a proposed $250 bill for a denomination that does not exist. The passport is the newest item in the portfolio and the first one that every American citizen, regardless of how they feel about any of this, is legally required to carry across international borders. The branding reach is genuinely unprecedented. Most advertisers cannot force their logo into the wallets of 340 million people. Trump managed it with a passport redesign.
The photograph will remain in the document until 2036. Two elections happen inside that window. The face does not expire when the presidency does, which is the kind of legacy planning that the Kennedy Center renaming did not survive.
When a man whose name was removed from one national monument puts his face into the document that identifies every American to every foreign government, what exactly is the document identifying?
Sources
Fox News: New limited-edition US passport features Trump’s image and warning
HuffPost: ‘So Embarrassing’: Trump’s New ‘Tin Pot Dictator’ Passport May Have 1 Very Awkward Phrase
