That which could be valued as money even if it isn’t common specie itself can be thought, de facto, the coin of the realm. In post-Trump Republican America, the coin of the realm appears to be a slavish obeisance to Donald Trump. In other words, fealty to Trump is the Republican coin of the realm.
Will Jim (Gym) Jordan or his Republican co-conspirators in the Jan 6th insurrection ever tell the truth about their roles? Will Mark Meadows be forthcoming about his knowledge of Trump’s machinations to steal the 2020 election? I’m thinking probably not. All of them are trading in a marketplace of political influence and power in which their allegiance to and protection of Trump is the coin of the realm.
I think that a tribe of conspiracy-theory sycophants that so often quotes Thomas Jefferson’s allusion to the “Tree of Liberty” should be mindful that Democrats may be the true “patriots,” and they themselves the “tyrants” in that quote.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”