Let’s be clear about this: President Donald Trump, the white nationalist president who appeals to racist Midwesterners and Southerners by leaning into his racist charm, never wanted a black woman on American currency.
Hell, he said as much when he was just regular Russian-citizen Trump. As a candidate, Trump said that putting the former slave who helped free slaves as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad was “pure political correctness” and proposed that Tubman get the consolation prize of the $2 bill, which is barely used and usually followed with, “This isn’t bullshit, that’s real money!”
According to New York magazine, in June 2018 the Trump administration admitted the new $20 bill featuring Tubman, which was originally scheduled for 2020, was officially on the back burner.
Well, now we know that back burner is far AF. During a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the holder of Trump’s nuts and taxes, said that the projected timeline for the face swap is ... 2028. He cited a “security feature redesign” and anti-counterfeiting efforts as the reasoning for not putting the escaped slave’s face on the money, but we all know that the real deal is Trump never wanted it that way.
“Mr. Mnuchin, concerned that the president might create an uproar by canceling the new bill altogether, was eager to delay its redesign until Mr. Trump was out of office, some senior Treasury Department officials have said,” according to a New York Times report
Trump likes Andrew Jackson, who’s on the current $20, as he’s a fan of displacing people. According to PBS, “During 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the “Trail of Tears,” because of its devastating effects.”
Sounds mighty Trumpian don’t you think?
Also, Trump has made his entire first term (hopefully his only term) as president about trying to undo former President Obama’s legacy. In fact, besides playing golf and rallying, undoing Obama’s legacy is just about all he’s done.
So they pushed Tubman so far off the $20 bill that we can’t even see her anymore. Hopefully, the next president (looking at you Elizabeth Warren with that ingenious policy of erasing student loan debt) will take another look at having a black woman’s face on U.S. currency.