The new semiquincentennial dime has an eagle holding arrows but no olive branch.US Mint
When Charles Thomson and William Barton designed the Great Seal of the United States more than 200 years ago, they were unambiguous about its meaning. A bald eagle would clutch arrows in one set of talons, symbolizing war, and an olive branch in the other, symbolizing peace. In 1945, President Harry Truman officially declared that the bird’s head should always face toward the olive branch—denoting America’s preference for peace.
Now, the administration of the self-proclaimed “president of peace”—who claims to have ended eight wars, even as he starts new ones—will mint dimes without the olive branch at all. It’s part of the US Mint’s semiquincentennial line, a one-year-only redesign of US coinage commemorating America’s 250th birthday.
The new designs were unveiled in December, but the absence of the olive branch on the back of the dime came under renewed scrutiny this past week after it was highlighted by Fortune. News editor Catherina Gioino wrote that the “omission is hard to read as accidental,” calling it a “cultural signal” of our war-torn times.
The medallic artist behind the dime, Eric David Custer, told Spotlight PA in February that the lack of the olive branch is a reference to the American Revolution, when colonists were striving for peace but hadn’t yet achieved it. But Frank L. Holt, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Houston, said in an interview with the Washington Post that the controversy over the dropped olive branch “condemns the whole design.”
“Money talks, but it should speak plainly and with clear purpose,” Holt said.
The commemorative coin line is just one of many ways that the Trump administration has used America’s 250th anniversary as an opportunity to crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion and rewrite America’s history in Trump’s image.
Indeed, it’s difficult not to see the new dime within the context of other coinage decisions at the US Mint. All of the semiquincentennial designs had to receive final approval from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who axed several recommendations developed under President Joe Biden’s administration by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. The rejected designs included coins that featured renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass and ones commemorating women’s suffrage and school desegregation. In December, US Treasurer Brandon Beach decried those designs as part of Biden’s “DEI and Critical Race Theory policies.”
“The new Semiquincentennial Quarter designs will celebrate American history and the founding of our great nation,” Beach told Fox News. “The Trump administration is dedicated to fostering prosperity and patriotism.”
The commemorative coin line is just one of many ways that the Trump administration has used America’s 250th anniversary as an opportunity to crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion and rewrite America’s history in President Donald Trump’s image. Scowling next to portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Trump’s face has graced National Park Service passes and massive banners draped from federal buildings.
And, naturally, Trump’s face was one of the designs proposed by the US Mint for a semiquincentennial $1 coin.
In December, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced a bill, titled the “Change Corruption Act,” to block any living president from appearing on US currency.
“While monarchs put their faces on coins,” Cortez Masto said in a press release, “America has never had and never will have a king.”
