Playing cards have always been carriers of symbolism. 

What we know today as the Ace was first utilized as a necessary tax-stamp for playing card taxes on every created deck. Now, an Ace is commonplace and gives card players everywhere that slight confidence boost when it’s in the right suit at the right time.

What we know as court cards today stand as representations of royalty.

But today, what if they weren’t?

A couple minutes after midnight, I was struck by a thought: what if court cards became presidents instead?

Next, I realized that it could very well say something about trust.

Imagine…

Let’s imagine. 

Not the famous John Lennon-penned Beatles song, but instead a simple exercise in stretching the imagination to the edge for a brief moment.

Let’s imagine that the court cards in the deck are replaced with more modern images. Not depictions of long-dead royalty, but something completely different. Politicians.

That’s the President, the First Lady and the Vice President in the place of the King, Queen and Jack.

How interesting would your bridge game become from there? How much confidence would you have in the deck/

Proud Representations… Or Not

The measure of how we feel about a country’s leaders might be represented by what we would think of them if they were represented on a deck of cards.

Leaders are there to lead. (Court cards are often used for the same.) 

People who weren’t great leaders often have their names stripped from awards, institutions and monuments postmortem. Eventually, they have less things named after them than they did at their height – and generally, we avoid putting these leaders and their faces on card decks, museums and charities. 

It’s true for everyone from horrible dictators through to disgraced celebrities.

Choose role-models and leaders with care.

If you wouldn’t trust role-models and leaders as court cards in the ccard deck, don’t trust them when it’s time to elect them to any other position when the time comes around.