To the Citizen Who Expects Better,
Citizens tighten their budgets while power decorates itself in gold.
There is something profoundly indecent about a government indulging in monuments, spectacle, and theatrical grandeur while ordinary Americans struggle simply to remain secure beneath rising costs, economic uncertainty, institutional exhaustion, and growing instability.
The Founders understood this instinctively. They had watched monarchs drape themselves in gold while common citizens carried the cost. They had seen palaces rise while civic institutions weakened. They understood that excessive displays of personal grandeur were not merely aesthetic choices, but political signals — visible declarations that the state exists increasingly to elevate the ruler rather than serve the public.
For this reason, the American presidency was intentionally designed with restraint in mind.
Not weakness.
Restraint.
The office was meant to project stability, seriousness, discipline, and constitutional continuity. Its legitimacy derived not from spectacle, ornament, or personal glorification, but from public trust and lawful limitation. The president was not intended to resemble a king, an emperor, or a gilded celebrity demanding architectural tribute to his own importance.
Yet increasingly, the public is confronted with precisely this impulse: the obsession with monuments to self, lavish embellishment, excessive personalization of public spaces, performative luxury, symbolic grandiosity, and the strange conviction that visible opulence reflects national strength.
It does not.
Gold plating does not strengthen a republic.
Massive ballrooms do not improve governance.
Personal monuments do not stabilize institutions.
Currency bearing the face of a living political figure does not elevate democracy.
These things serve vanity.
And vanity has always posed danger to constitutional government because vanity confuses personal image with national destiny. It encourages leaders to treat criticism as disloyalty, institutions as extensions of themselves, and public resources as instruments of personal legacy.
Benjamin Franklin understood the importance of civic humility perhaps better than most of his contemporaries. He cultivated usefulness rather than majesty. Practicality rather than spectacle. He recognized that republics survive not through theatrical displays of power, but through disciplined stewardship, functional institutions, informed citizens, and leaders capable of distinguishing public service from personal glorification.
That distinction now appears increasingly endangered.
There is something profoundly revealing about a government eager to invest symbolic energy into self-celebration while citizens struggle beneath rising costs, institutional distrust, political exhaustion, failing infrastructure, healthcare instability, educational conflict, and economic insecurity. The contrast is not merely poor taste. It reflects a distorted understanding of leadership itself.
Strong republics do not require rulers to decorate themselves like royalty.
In fact, the more fragile a leader’s legitimacy becomes, the more aggressively spectacle often expands to compensate for it. Grandeur becomes substitute for seriousness. Branding replaces statesmanship. Appearance overtakes substance.
History offers no shortage of examples.
And history is rarely kind to them.
This moment carries particular irony as the United States approaches its two hundred and fiftieth year. The nation preparing to celebrate its independence from monarchy now finds itself increasingly surrounded by the aesthetics of monarchy: gilded symbolism, personalized grandeur, loyalty-centered politics, public adoration rituals, and the elevation of individual image above institutional dignity.
The anniversary should invite reflection not merely on how long the republic has survived, but on what principles made it worth preserving in the first place.
This is not an argument against beauty, architecture, ceremony, or national symbolism. A nation should take pride in its public spaces. Civic beauty can elevate public life when it reflects shared ideals rather than individual ego.
But there is a meaningful difference between honoring a republic and ornamenting a personality.
The first strengthens citizenship.
The second weakens it.
And as the nation prepares to commemorate two and a half centuries since rejecting monarchy, Americans should ask themselves:
When leaders demand monuments to themselves while citizens struggle, what exactly are they governing for?
Because republics rarely abandon their principles all at once.
More often, they slowly redecorate themselves out of them.
I remain, unwilling to accept less,
Prudence C. Wilder
Letter's From Prudence 