In a move that seems more suited to a palace courtier than a 21st-century nation, the United States has announced that Donald Trump’s face will adorn US passports for the 250th birthday of the republic. The decision is a perfect mirror of the current intellectual and cultural decadence: a country so obsessed with its own mythology that it replaces real substance with celebrity visage. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom’s passport remains the gold standard of security and understated elegance. This contrast is not incidental; it is instructive.
Let us first consider the American gesture. The US passport, once a symbol of a rising global power, now bears the likeness of a man who embodies the very fracturing of that power. It is a bizarre choice for a nation’s 250th anniversary. The bicentennial in 1976 was marked by dignified reflection and a sense of shared history. Today, we choose a face that represents division, crude populism, and a disdain for the very institutions the passport represents. This is what I would call the ‘Neronian impulse’: to plaster one’s own image on every coin and document, as if the state were a mere extension of the leader’s ego. But Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump’s face on a passport will not stop the flames of demographic change, economic uncertainty, or geopolitical decline.
The British passport, by contrast, has long been a model of quiet competence. Its security features are the envy of the world, and its design remains classic, unburdened by political gimmickry. The UK, for all its own troubles, has not stooped to such theatricality. This is not mere nostalgia for empire; it is a recognition that documents of state should inspire trust, not laughter. The passport is a contract between the citizen and the world, a guarantee of identity and protection. When that guarantee is trivialised, the state itself is diminished.
Yet we must be careful not to mistake this as a simple battle between good and bad design. The real issue is the decay of civic religion. In the Victorian era, the passport was a minor affair; identity was proven by reputation and character. Today, we fetishise the document itself, and in doing so, we lose sight of what it represents. The American decision is a symptom of a deeper malady: the worship of personality over principle, the craving for spectacle over substance. It is the same impulse that leads to reality TV presidents, viral Twitter feuds, and a populace more concerned with who is on the passport than what the passport enables.
We are witnessing the ‘Baudrillarian turn’: the simulation of reality has overtaken reality. A passport is no longer a neutral identifier but a political statement. And in this case, a statement of profound banality. The irony is that the US, the self-proclaimed beacon of democracy, is now copying the worst habits of monarchies. The king’s face on the coinage, the emperor’s profile on the stamp: these are the trappings of autocracy, not a republic. It is a sign that the American experiment has entered its late imperial phase, where the symbols of power are confused with power itself.
To be clear, I am not arguing that the UK is a paragon of virtue. Its passport may be secure, but its national identity is just as frayed. Yet in this particular contest, the British approach is superior precisely because it is less personal. A passport should not be a fan poster; it should be a tool. By adding Trump’s face, the US has turned a tool into a totem. And totems are for tribes, not nations.
What, then, does this mean for the future? It suggests that the US is doubling down on the cult of personality that has undermined its institutions for the past decade. It suggests that the UK, for all its own political circus, retains some institutional memory of what a state document ought to be. But both countries are failing to address the underlying crisis: the decline of shared identity, the erosion of trust in government, and the rise of a global elite that treats passports as mere bureaucratic inconveniences.
Perhaps we will look back on this moment as the peak of passport absurdity. Or perhaps it is only the beginning. If we continue down this path, we may soon see passports bearing the faces of pop stars or sports heroes. The line between citizenship and fandom will blur entirely. And then, when the next crisis comes, we will find that our documents are shiny but hollow, and that our nations are just brands without substance.
But I digress. For now, I will simply note that the gold standard remains in London. And that is cold comfort for a world that seems determined to trade real value for gaudy spectacle.
