This design is called the Flanagan reverse and it was printed from 1932–1998. The eagle perches on a bundle of arrows over two olive branches. Mussolini adopted the fasces as a symbol as early as 1914, but I can’t find any information on what sort of political beliefs John Flanagan held or whether he was aware of Mussolini.

The original fasces was a bundle of rods used by Etruscan magistrates for beating people and included an axe for decapitating people (Reminder that all cops have always been bastards). So technically, the bundles of arrows is a distinct symbol from the fasces. Similarly, the laurel wreath that’s common in fascist imagery is distinct from the olive branches. This distinction is important enough to fascist vexillologists, for example, that American eagles will often be depicted holding both a traditional fasces and a bundle of arrows.

But obv we can also call a spade a spade. It’s a fascist symbol that just never got stigmatized like the tilted swastika did. The Wikipedia article for “fasces” even lists American currency as an example. Even if its inclusion predates its widespread association with fascism, the question of why it hasn’t been removed seems pretty clear :amerikkka:

Oh, and by the way they started printing this coin face again this year.

Same reason there are bronze fasces in the House of Representatives.

take a good guess

Benjamin Franklin made a very good point when he said the national bird should be the turkey

oh shit those are American coins I thought they were Roman