Harriet Tubman, "What Me Worry" Mnuchin, and Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson

AROUND THE BLOCK

I learned…

I learned this week that the redesign of the $20 bill featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery and led hundreds of other people to freedom, will not be unveiled in 2020. 

Tubman was slated to replace slave owner Andrew Jackson — President Donald Trump’s favorite commander in chief — as part of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. 

The announcement was made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who said the design process has been delayed until 2028. 

The decision to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill was first announced in 2016 by Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who, in making the announcement, knew it would be up to the next administration to implement the change. But, as the Washington Post wrote at the time, “it seemed highly unlikely that anyone would upend a plan to honor this great American hero with a currency redesign that would also include depictions of historic events such as the suffragist march on Washington.”

As Lew said, “I don’t think somebody’s going to probably want to do that — to take the image of Harriet Tubman off of our money? To take the image of the suffragists off?”

Lew obviously didn’t anticipate Donald Trump and his band of sycophantic toadies who will do whatever they can to not only reverse Obama-era initiatives but to extract revenge at groups who did not support our Foolish Leader in the 2016 election (see the Homeland Security Agency’s threat to send 1,000 illegal aliens a week to Broward and Palm Beach, Florida counties which voted overwhelming for Hillary Clinton).

But even more incredulous was the reasoning behind the delay.

“The primary reason we have looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues,” Mnuchin said during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. “Based upon this, the $20 bill will now not come out until 2028. The $10 bill and the $50 bill will come out with new features beforehand.” 

Plausible? Not really. 

In the United States, the $20 bill is the most widely circulated and most frequently counterfeited note. (While the $100 note is the most frequently counterfeited denomination of U.S. currency outside the United States due to its broad circulation overseas, the “Benjamin” was redesigned with anti-counterfeit security measures in 2013). 

As the Washington Post editorialized this week, “it is more likely that Mr. Mnuchin feared President Trump would cause an uproar with an outright cancellation of a bill bearing Tubman’s image. As a candidate, Mr. Trump criticized the decision as 'political correctness,' and he has made no secret of his admiration for President Andrew Jackson, whose image Tubman would have dislodged from the front of the $20 bill."

So, the money man in Trump’s Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight, Steve “What Me Worry?” Mnuchin, is not only a terrible Treasury Secretary, he's an obsequious flunky who doesn't have the imagination or resourcefulness to come up with a plausible excuse for the delay.

Steve "What Me Worry?" Mnuchin

Talking about plausibility — it is incredulous that any person of color or any woman (or anyone, actually) can possibly continue to support this vindictive, spiteful excuse for a president and his minions.

And, by the way, regarding Andrew Jackson – he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which called for the relocation of Southeastern Native American tribes to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for white settlement of their ancestral lands. Hmm? Indian Removal Act? No wonder Trump admires Jackson; can you say Latino Removal Act?