For Trump, Tubman on $20 Bill Illustrates Broader American Problem

Apr 23 2016, 9:58 pm ET

For Trump, Tubman on $20 Bill Illustrates Broader American Problem

by Perry Bacon Jr.

Donald Trump's take on the decision to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill as "pure political correctness" is symbolic of a style of politics he's displayed throughout this campaign: at times wary of changes to long-standing American customs and institutions and showing a willingness to take controversial stands on issues that affect women and minorities.

"I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic," Trump said in an interview on NBC's Today Show on Thursday. "I would love to — I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill."

His remarks illustrate the divide between the political approach of Trump and the man he could succeed, Barack Obama.
[Donald Trump: Putting Harriet Tubman on $20 bill is 'political correctness']
Donald Trump: Putting Harriet Tubman on $20 bill is 'political correctness' 1:12

The decision by the Obama administration to honor Tubman was a celebration of a historic figure admired by Americans of all political beliefs.

Related: Harriet Tubman to Replace President Andrew Jackson on $20 Bill

But it was also a clear political act.

"This whole thing is symbolic politics," said Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University. "Putting women on currency is not going to change the gender pay gap and not going to change the fact that the pay gap is worse for black women and women of color."

Obama and his administration have put the inclusion and promotion of women, people who are gay and transgender, African-Americans, and Latinos at the center of their political agenda, seeking to make up for past discrimination and promote diversity of gender, race and sexual identity whenever possible. Obama has appointed the first Latino Supreme Court justice, first two black U.S. attorney generals, the first openly transgender White House staffer making his administration one of the most demographically diverse in history.
[Things You Should Know About Harriet Tubman]
Things You Should Know About Harriet Tubman 1:07

Replacing Andrew Jackson — who forced tens of thousands of Native Americans to relocate from the South to Oklahoma in what is known as the "Trail of Tears"— with Tubman was a natural step for Obama's team.

"The decision to put Tubman on the twenty is a powerful sign of Americans' changing relationship with their own history. At the same time, it's also the gesture of liberals who have been fairly impotent lately in their efforts to correct the deep socioeconomic sources of racial inequality," said Molly Worthen, a history professor at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about how views of identity shape each party.

The decision split conservatives along predictable lines.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has made unifying the country a central theme of his presidential campaign and last year created a task force to deal with tensions between minorities in his state and the police, applauded the honoring of Tubman.

In contrast, Ben Carson, several Fox News personalities and Trump said that the decision was the latest example of an administration bent on what conservatives cast as "politically correct" moves. They praised Jackson, who was one of the key figures in the founding of what is the modern Democratic Party.

While Trump complimented Tubman he said he didn't agree with replacing Jackson on the denomination.

He added, "I don't like seeing it. Yes, I think it's pure political correctness. Been on the bill [Jackson] for many, many years. And, you know, really represented somebody that really was very important to this country. I would love to see another denomination, and that could take place. I think — I think it would be more appropriate."

Trump has made comments suggesting that the Mexican government is intentionally sending criminals across the border, Muslims should be barred from entering the United States and that the U.S. needs to build a large border wall to keep out Mexican immigrants.

The comments about the replacement of Tubman with Jackson, like those other controversial Trump stances, has clear racial implications, Gillespie said. The issue also highlights that the real estate mogul has campaigned as something of a traditionalist, willing to defend people and customs that other Americans want to alter radically.

"Donald Trump knows that when he makes certain types of comments that he is going to tap into certain types of resentment in the American economy... jobs disappearing and a certain trepidation about the country changing demographically," Gillespie said. "Those are sentiments he's tapped into to cultivate his base of support in this primary season."

Trump complained of the push by the NFL to make changes to the rules that might reduce concussions, telling a crowd in January, "football has become soft like our country has become soft."

Early this month, campaigning in Pennsylvania, Trump called for the return of a statute honoring the late Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who was fired by the university amid allegations he had covered up allegations against assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who molested young boys while he worked at the university. Trump has repeatedly praised police officers and suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement is overly critical of them.

And throughout his run, Trump has argued he will not conform to "political correctness," which to the real estate mogul seems to link issues from football to Tubman.

"The real rise of the phrase [political correctness] can be traced to the early 1990's, when people started to use it to critique or just lament the policing of ideas that are out of step with the hegemony of liberalism in American society, post civil rights and post women's liberation. In doing so they also effectively signaled themselves as 'free thinking," said Carole Bell, a professor of communication at Northeastern University in Boston.

But in case of some conservatives backing Trump, Bell argued, "it's an expression of the racial resentment that political scientists have long known were animating much of our political discourse around identity. But it's masked as a concern for free speech."

Greta Van Susteren, a Fox News host, said this week the Obama administration was in effect the offender, not conservatives, arguing the Obama administration, in replacing Jackson with Tubman instead of leaving his face in place and putting her on another bill, was "gratuitously stirring up the nation."
[Donald Trump calls for dismissal of LGBT bathroom bill: 'Leave it the way it is']
Donald Trump calls for dismissal of LGBT bathroom bill: 'Leave it the way it is' 1:20

On gay rights, Trump has been more open to following the liberal drift in American culture.

He has not railed against same-sex marriage, as other Republicans have, and said in the "Today" interview that North Carolina should have not passed a law regulating which bathrooms transgender Americans use.

Obama, in contrast, has suggested that if he had a son, he would be reluctant see him play football, and has defended Black Lives Matter activists.

Hillary Clinton, in a tweet, wrote, "A woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter. I can't think of a better choice for the $20 bill than Harriet Tubman."

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...roblem-n560041

I have no problem with the change. At first I did, simply because I thought wrongly without thinking that Presidents were on our money, forgetting about Hamilton and Franklin, and then learn that throughout history there have been several people on our money who were not Presidents. This shows that the issue of who is on our money is not on my radar.

But, I do have this to say about the issue of symbolism. Symbolism is good, but it doesn't fix bad policies that hurt the very people the symbolism is trying to honor which means it can often be a crumb thrown instead of a problem solved.

Trump is the only candidate in the race hammering away about jobs for black Americans. Trump is the only candidate who tells almost every rally he holds about the outrageous high unemployment rates of black Americans, especially young black Americans that have a 59% unemployment rate. This unemployment situation is unacceptable and must be fixed with good jobs which Trump intends to create by bringing our jobs home and sending illegal aliens back home.

So I wonder why the media wants to spend several news days on what Trump thinks about moving Jackson off the $20 and putting Tubman on it and so far, not once during this long campaign have they ever focused on Trump's important issue of high unemployment, especially among black Americans.

Hopefully they can cover both news events and probe deeper into the truly important issue of black unemployment and how our country's leaders have sold them out .... again. And yes, that includes Barack Obama.

Are the taxpayers paying to change this $20 dollar bill? If so, then put it off until the $22 Trillion in debt is paid off!!!

If we are not on the hook paying for it then they can put the Man in the Moon on the bill, who cares. This is not the most pressing issue we are facing right now.

Let's just honor her with a commemorative coin from the United States Mint. I say leave the $20 bill as is. Will the 'PC' crowd go after George Washington next? He too owned slaves.

The Colors of Money: Andrew Jackson Still Fights the Banking War

Money Metals News Service
August 3rd, 2016

This year marks the 101^st anniversary of Andrew Jackson rolling over and over in his grave.

Back in 1915, the brand new Federal Reserve pasted the 7^th President's likeness on its first $10 debt note – a sharp slap to the President who fought and won his famously bitter battle to destroy the “corrupting monster” of central banking.

Old Hickory's 1836 victory held steady until 1913, when the bankers gathered in secret at Jekyll Island, Georgia to plot the greatest bank robbery in history.
https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/...ew-jackson.jpg
President Jackson railed against
central banks and paper money.

The scheme was simple. First, print all the money they wanted, backed only by government promises. Then, day by day, steal all the wealth it represented through built-in, unstoppable inflation.

As more and more Federal Reserve debt coupons would litter the landscape, their value would shrivel to less and less. Since government always has first use of cash hot off the presses, only unsuspecting, taxpaying citizens would ever be financially harmed.

Worked like a charm.
Their crime-in-progress has now lasted longer than Andrew Jackson's victory to wipe them out, reducing the value of the 1913 dollar to maybe two cents over the past 103 years, as uncounted mega-trillions wash across the planet.
But The Fed wasn't finished sticking it to Jackson.

The hero of the last battle of the War of 1812, who killed a man in a duel after his wife was insulted, who survived the first attempted assassination of a sitting President (and then beat his hapless assailant senseless with a cane), would find his picture plastered on the $20 debt ticket in 1928, where it seemed destined to remain – until now.

A recently announced substitution for Jackson discloses more than just another hilarious “inside joke” at The Fed.

Harriet Tubman became famous escorting slaves along the Underground Railroad prior to the American Civil War. She was credited with guiding 70 families to their freedom. Like Jackson, she knew how to handle a pistol.

She was also a self-admitted co-conspirator with abolitionist John Brown in the 1859 assault on the U.S. Armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, meant to spark a slave uprising.

Six townspeople and one U.S. Marine were killed during the gun battle. Nine townspeople and a Marine were wounded. The first man shot to death by Brown and Tubman's insurgents was a railroad baggage handler, an unarmed black man who was not a slave.

That headline today would read “Terrorist Attack.”

Tubman helped plan, finance, and recruit for the attack, but she wasn't there when the shooting started, for reasons debated but never explained.

Tubman was not around when Brown and six of her other co-conspirators were tried, convicted, and hanged for murder and treason.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's dubious decision to feature Tubman on the twenty (moving Jackson to the reverse) is an acknowledged, politically correct appeasement primarily to Hollywood and media politicos demanding women and civil rights figures on the currency.

It was bankers and bureaucrats acting in their own political interests who took the most celebrated woman off coinage and currency in the first place.

The allegorical Lady Liberty graced American coins from 1793 through 1947, and paper currency until the early 1900's, before being forgotten in favor of politically correct substitutions.

It's already too late to feature the first named woman on circulating U.S. currency. Martha Washington, who donated her silver to mint the first American silver coins, graced the $1 Silver Certificate in 1886 and again in 1896 – when paper dollars were still a trusted substitute for sound money.

Too late also to put the first civil rights heroine on U.S. money. Suffragette Susan B. Anthony's 1979 dollar coin was instantly despised, not to mention intrinsically worthless. “Susy B's” lasted three years before Washington figured out Americans wouldn't use them.

That dollar coin would have been successful at the dawn of the stylish, swinging, entertaining Eighties had it been modeled after actress Susan Anton instead of Susan Anthony.

Since picking images for coins and currencies seems arbitrarily up for grabs, we have a suggestion for Secretary Lew...
https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/...ars-mickey.jpg
This paper money is actually rising in value.

A few months ago, Disneyland discontinued printing their popular Disney Dollars – corporate coupons used at theme parks. They feature historically significant figures like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and other internationally famous cartoon icons.

The surprise decision caught Disney fans unprepared. One currency dealer and avid collector tells us the market value of existing Disney Bucks is shooting sky high.

Since Disney is no longer using Mickey and Goofy, or even gender inclusive Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck on theme park cash, we suggest Treasury adopt Disney's images for all changes to U.S. currency.

Fictional cartoon characters would represent America's central banking more faithfully than any whimsical fairy tale bureaucrats can invent.

As existing Disney Dollars continue to zoom in value, putting Mickey and Goofy on U.S. currency would give that paper something it does not have now – instant intrinsic value – as collector items!

Okay, we know opinions about pictures on money skirt the underlying issue – that paper is not backed by sound money. Gold was driven out of the American psyche when taken from circulation in 1933, and silver in 1964. Only a fraction of Americans alive today have ever seen a gold or silver coin, much less owned one.

To acquaint modern Americans with sound money again, we encourage the Treasury to seriously consider another historic Disney character.

That would be Scrooge McDuck, a champion of hard work, savings, and thrift, and usually portrayed playing in his vault, waist deep in physical gold and silver coins.
Wouldn't matter to Andy Jackson. The President who called the central bank “subversive to liberty” would welcome any character who finally gets him off the paper money.
https://www.moneymetals.com/news/201...00905?AID=7236