If real history is said to repeat itself, perhaps there is no reason that conspiratorial alternative histories shouldn’t either.
Some members of American sovereign citizen movements and QAnon believe Donald Trump will be “re-inaugurated” on March 4 as the 19th president of a “restored” United States of America. Others of us apparently mistakenly believe Trump served validly, if treasonably, as the 45th president from Jan. 20, 2017 to Jan. 20, 2021.
Prices to rent a room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C on March 4 have been hiked to $1,331, more than double the $596 price for a guest room for most of that month and nearly triple the lowest cost.
“They believe that March 4, 2021 is the start for the new Republic. March 4 was the start date of the new President until it was changed in 1933,” Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies QAnon, tweeted on Jan. 13.
The basis of the sovereign citizen movements and QAnon claim comes from the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, which established D.C. as a municipal corporation that is organized as a federal territory, but which they believe didn’t just create a municipal corporation, it turned the United States into a corporation, which apparently is secretly controlled by international bankers and so forth. In reality, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 simply repealed the individual charters of the City of Washington and the City of Georgetown and established a new territorial government for the entire District of Columbia. By doing this, they created a single municipal government or municipal corporation.
Not good enough for the sovereign citizen movements and QAnon, who now claim every president after 1871, when the incumbent was Ulysses S. Grant, who has led the Union Army a few years earlier as commanding general of the United States Army in winning the American Civil War, and later became the 18th president on March 4, 1869, was illegitimate. Does that mean Donald Trump was a poser between 2017 and 2021?
Soon after taking office Grant took steps to return the nation’s currency to a more secure footing, including committing the United States to the full return to the gold standard within 10 years. During the Civil War, Congress had authorized the Treasury to issue banknotes that, unlike the rest of the currency, were not backed by gold or silver. The “greenback” notes, as they were known, were necessary to pay the unprecedented war debts, but they also caused inflation and forced gold-backed money out of circulation; Grant was determined to return the national economy to pre-war monetary standards.
On March 18, 1869, he signed the Public Credit Act of 1869 that guaranteed bondholders would be repaid in “coin or its equivalent”, while greenbacks would gradually be redeemed by the Treasury and replaced by notes backed by specie. This followed a policy of “hard currency, economy and gradual reduction of the national debt.” The classical gold standard existed from the 1870s to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. “In the first part of the 19th century, once the turbulence caused by the Napoleonic Wars had subsided,” says the London-based World Gold Council, “money consisted of either specie (gold, silver or copper coins) or of specie-backed bank issue notes. However, originally only the UK and some of its colonies were on a gold standard, joined by Portugal in 1854. Other countries were usually on a silver or, in some cases, a bimetallic standard.
“In 1871, the newly unified Germany, benefiting from reparations paid by France following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, took steps which essentially put it on a gold standard. The impact of Germany’s decision, coupled with the then economic and political dominance of the UK and the attraction of accessing London’s financial markets, was sufficient to encourage other countries to turn to gold. However, this transition to a pure gold standard, in some opinions, was more based on changes in the relative supply of silver and gold. Regardless, by 1900 all countries apart from China, and some Central American countries, were on a gold standard. This lasted until it was disrupted by the First World War. Periodic attempts to return to a pure classical Gold Standard were made during the inter-war period, but none survived past the 1930s Great Depression.
“During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one ounce of gold cost $20.67 in the United States and ₤4.24 in the U.K.,” Michael Klein, professor of International Economic Affairs at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, just outside Boston, wrote last year.”
This meant that someone could convert one British pound to $4.86 and vice versa.
“Countries on the gold standard – which included all major industrial countries during the system’s heyday from 1871 to 1914 – had a fixed price for an ounce of gold and thus a fixed exchange rate with others who used the system,” writes Klein. “They kept the same gold peg throughout the period.
Sovereign citizen movements and QAnon believe the U.S. has been run by a group of shadowy investors since 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the gold standard. The date of presidential inaugurations was also changed from March 4 to Jan. 20 in 1933.
When it comes to questioning the legitimacy and validity of its number one office holder, some who identify as Catholics long ago had a head start on those from sovereign citizen movements and QAnon waiting for a “re-inaugurated” Donald Trump on March 4 to become president of a “restored” United States of America.
A minority group within the traditionalist movement, sedevacantists claim the Holy See has been vacant, due to the Roman Catholic Church’s espousal of what they see as the heresy of Modernism and that, for lack of a valid pope, the Holy See has been vacant since the death of Pope Venerable Pius XII on Oct. 9, 1958. The term “sedevacantism” is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which literally means “with the chair [of Saint Peter] vacant.” Sedevacantism as a term in English appears to date from the 1980s.
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