The Asshole Dime
They’re telling us exactly who they are (again)
When I first saw the headline, I assumed it was AI slop. Or satire. Some clever Photoshop job making the rounds on Twitter before getting community-noted into oblivion.
The U.S. Mint has unveiled the design for the new commemorative dime, part of the Semiquincentennial celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The reverse draws from the Great Seal of the United States: an eagle clutching arrows in its talons.
Just arrows.
The olive branch is gone.
Here’s what you need to know about the Great Seal.
The Founders didn’t slap it together over a long weekend. It took six years—from 1776 to 1782—and three separate committees before Congress adopted the final design. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all contributed ideas. The version we know today was largely designed by Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, who was meticulous about what every element meant.
The eagle holds two things: an olive branch in its right talon and thirteen arrows in its left. Thomson was explicit about the symbolism. The olive branch represents the power of peace. The arrows represent the power of war. Together, they send a single message: the United States desires peace but will always be ready to defend itself.
And here’s the part that matters most: the eagle’s head faces the olive branch.
That wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t aesthetic preference. It was a deliberate statement of national priority. Peace first. War when necessary.
The imagery connects directly to the Olive Branch Petition of 1775—Congress’s final diplomatic appeal to King George III before the Revolution escalated beyond return. The Founders knew what war cost. They’d lived it. They encoded their hard-won wisdom into the symbols of the nation they were building.
Thirteen arrows. Thirteen leaves. Thirteen olives. E Pluribus Unum—out of many, one. Everything balanced. Everything intentional.
Since 1935, that Great Seal has appeared on the back of every one-dollar bill. The eagle facing the olive branch. For ninety years, every American who’s held a dollar has held that message in their hands.
(The eagle didn’t always face the olive branch, by the way. From 1877 to 1945, it faced the arrows. President Truman signed an executive order to change it. He told Winston Churchill he was very happy about the decision. The choice was deliberate then. It’s deliberate now.)
The official explanation for the new dime is that the arrows-only eagle represents “the active struggle for independence”—the Revolutionary era, before peace was achieved. It’s meant to evoke grit. Determination. The fight for liberty.
That’s the stated rationale. I don’t buy it.
The coin is meant to celebrate 250 years of American history—not just the Revolutionary War. If you wanted to honor the full arc, you’d include the symbol the Founders spent six years perfecting: the balance of peace and war. You’d show what they built, not just what they fought through.
And if it were really just about historical accuracy, you wouldn’t stamp “Liberty over Tyranny” beneath an eagle holding only weapons. That’s not a history lesson. That’s a statement.
To be fair about the timeline: the design was reviewed by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee in September 2024, before Trump took office again. But the Trump administration had final approval. Treasury Secretary Bessent personally scrapped other commemorative designs in December 2025, calling them “DEI and Critical Race Theory.” One featured people with linked arms and the words “We shall overcome.”
They kept the one without the olive branch.
This is an administration that started a war with Iran without congressional authorization. That deployed 2,700 federal agents to Minnesota, called our neighbors “garbage.”, and killed two people. That celebrated when Elon Musk fired 386,000 federal workers. That treats courts as obstacles and judges as enemies. That answers every question with force.
Of course they kept the design without the olive branch. They don’t want peace. Peace is weakness. Diplomacy is for suckers. The only language they understand—the only language they want to understand—is the language of domination.
The Founders spent six years designing a seal that said: We prefer peace, but we’re ready for war.
This administration looked at that and said: Nah. Just war.
I know, in the grand scheme of things, this is small. It’s a dime. It’s a commemorative coin most people will never see or hold. There are wars happening. People are being deported. Federal workers are losing their jobs. The economy is stumbling. American soldiers are dead in Iran.
But symbols matter. That’s the whole point of symbols. They tell us who we are—or who we’re becoming.
And they just told us.
They took a 250-year-old statement of national character—we want peace—and erased it. On purpose. For a coin meant to celebrate the founding of this country.
The asshole dime. That’s what this is now. A perfect little ten-cent monument to what we’ve become.
I don’t know what to tell you anymore. Vote. Protest. Keep the list. Call your representatives, if you still believe that matters. Talk to your neighbors. Don’t let them make you forget what this country was supposed to be.
Or just pull a dollar bill out of your wallet. Look at the back. The eagle still faces the olive branch there—for now. Remember what it meant. Remember what we were supposed to be.
