Passports for Sale (Your Democracy Is Now a Product Line)

Have you LOOKED at that AP News article? I had to read it three times because their website kept trying to convince me to subscribe to something called "AP Plus." The page was a maze of consent banners, each one asking permission to track me a slightly different way. There was a video that autoplayed at maximum volume. A banner asking if I wanted to hear about their news alert service. And only THEN could I read about commemorative passports with Trump's name on them.

But that's what we're doing now. We've officially turned the entire apparatus of American identity into a souvenir rack at the airport gift shop.

In 1982, if you wanted a passport, you went to the courthouse — a building made of actual stone, not screens and cookies — and a woman named Mrs. Kowalski who had been stamping documents since 1961 would hand you one. It cost $42. It took two weeks. You did not have the option to upgrade to a Trump-branded version because the very idea would have gotten you laughed out of the courthouse by Mrs. Kowalski and everyone in line behind you, and they would have been RIGHT.

Now there's a whole product line. Commemorative passports. As if a passport needs to be COMMEMORATED. You know what a passport is? It's proof that the government recognizes you as a citizen and won't let you leave without one. It is not a collectible. It is not merchandise. And yet here we are, because apparently we have solved all other problems and this was the logical next frontier.

And another thing — the people buying these, what are they keeping them in? A glass case? A scrapbook? You can't actually USE them. They're ornaments. This is what we've become. We turn our civic identity into decorative objects. In 1982, you kept your passport in a drawer because you might need it and because it was FUNCTIONAL, not because it looked nice on a shelf next to your other branded commemorative items.

And another thing — what's to stop ANYBODY from doing this now? Can I get Biden passports? Can I get a whole set? A COLLECTION? Are we going to have a Commemorative Passport Trading Card market? Are we tokenizing our own citizenship?

The article notes these are "collectible souvenirs rather than official travel documents." So they're admitting it. They're not even TRYING to pretend. They're just printing vanity items with someone's face on them and calling it patriotism.

I need to lie down.

—Exhausted since 1982