Well, it certainly will affect our terms of reference. A penny saved will no longer be a penny earned. No one will offer a penny for someone’s thoughts. A pretty penny? Whatever do you mean!
But I think something bigger hides in this latest decision by our president, in that it represents the way he operates generally. In a way, the elimination of the penny is the perfect sort of move for our new, belittling leader. It accomplishes nothing, saves next to nothing. And, symbolically, it’s a perfect example of how Mr. Trump treats the little guy.
Dismantle U.S.A.I.D.? Why not? Its budget is minuscule, its workforce puny. Like the penny, it can’t fight back.
Yet, the good done by U.S.A.I.D. is enormous, and symbolic of the best America can do in the world. Like the Marshall Plan, U.S.A.I.D. tells everyone that our vast power can be used to help the helpless. Why would any national leader want to get rid of it?
Because it’s little, that’s why, little and vulnerable—the penny of government agencies.
Why would anyone want to punish individual F.B.I. agents simply for doing their jobs? Because they’re sitting ducks. Why would our president want to take away the rights—indeed, the existence—of transgender people? Because they are so small in number. Why would he want to swipe at drag performers by taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts? Because there are too few to count, and because they can’t defend themselves.
Defending the little guy, the unprotected American, is what this country is supposed to be about. The figure of the “forgotten man” was prominent during the Great Depression. But the fact that the Little Tramp wasn’t really forgotten said something beautiful about this country—that our eye was steadily on the sparrow, that we would always take care of our own, no matter how puny and (ah) penniless.
Charlie Chaplin based a whole career on demonstrating that the little guy was our most valuable citizen. Dirt-caked, clothing torn, down and out, he could make the blind see, as he did in City Lights, because he loved. And he was loved in return.
Small change? Absolutely. The republic depends on such small change, whose real value is gargantuan, monumental. And maybe Mr. Trump knows that. Maybe he recognizes the moral magnitude, and the power, of things like U.S.A.I.D., and is afraid of it.
Maybe he is afraid of the power of the arts, too. Every dictator worth his boots has sought to take over the arts because, by so doing, he commands the soul of the people.
Oh, come on, Roger. It’s just pennies we’re talking about, penny-ante stuff.
I don’t think so. In her glorious essay “On Seeing,” Annie Dillard makes a case for pennies as magical found objects. But one need not be romantic about it. I don’t deeply care whether we have any more pennies with us or not. Other countries such as Canada have done away with them successfully, for a small savings. Sentimentally, I may miss the chance to leave a few pennies in the tray at the 7-Eleven, but so what?
I do think, however, that the elimination of pennies is symbolic of Trump’s bullying attitude. Perhaps his decision to get rid of the penny is representative of a much bigger threat to something central to our system. If the country allows this president and his unelected co-conspirator to eliminate the smallest coins of the realm, who will give two cents for what’s left?
Roger Rosenblatt is the author of Making Toast, Cold Moon, Rules for Aging, and, most recently, A Steinway on the Beach
