Wingnut Week In Review: Who’s In Your Wallet?

April 22, 2016

Terrance Heath

ourfuture.org 

 

For eight years, wingnuts had to deal with the reality of a black man in the White House. Now, it looks like there will be a black woman in their wallets. They’re not taking it well. 

 

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that former slave Harriet Tubman, who led countless slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad would be the face of the newly redesigned $20 bill. It was the end of a year-long debate that began when Lew announced that a woman would grace the front of the newly redesigned $10 bill. The announcement set off a national discussion about whether such a change should be made, and just which woman from American history should be the new face on the $10 bill. (When the question came up at a Republican debate, the candidates performed miserably. One suggested British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Another nominated his mom.) 

 

An outcry from fans of Alexander Hamilton, and the Broadway hit bearing his name, probably influenced the change. (The new $10 bill will feature an image of the 1913 march for women’s suffrage that ended at the Treasury Department, and honor leaders like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth. The Treasury Dept. hopes to roll out the changes by 2020, the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Other changes to currency will include depictions of Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and black opera singer Marian Anderson, who famously sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to sing in their hall, because of her race.) 

 

But the decision to bump Andrew Jackson to the back to the $20 bill, and put Tubman on the front raised an even bigger outcry on the right. After all, who else would object to honoring an American who led more than 3000 slaves to freedom, instead of a slave-owning genocidal ex-general, who best work was the “Trail of Tears?”

• During an interview on the Today Show, presidential candidate Donald Trump railed against the change as “pure political correctness.”
• Failed presidential candidate Ben Carson defended Jackson — who built his wealth through owning hundreds of slaves, and forced Native Americans from their lands in order to clear land for more slave plantations — and suggested that, “we can find another way to honor her. Maybe a $2 bill.” And maybe Ben Carson should take a seat, already.
• Carson went on to get schooled by Megyn Kelly, of all people.
• Fox News host Greta Van Susteren lost it Wednesday night, calling the move “awful,” “dumb,” and “stupid for no reason,” claiming that Lew’s “creating a fight, a completely 100 percent unnecessary fight” with the change. Van Susteren suggested we “give Tubman her own bill, like a $25 bill.”

Twitter was ablaze.

Never mind that there are plenty of reasons conservatives should be thrilled with Tubman on the face of the $20. She was a Republican, a Christian, and routinely carried a gun in order to “stand her ground” why conducting along the Underground Railroad.

There are, perhaps, less odious reasons to question Tubman’s place on the new $20 bill. After all, she spent much her life, and risked her life, to free hundreds from a system that treated them like currency and commodities. While the change to the $20 bill honors Tubman’s life and contribution to history, it won’t do much to improve access to cash for African-Americans. Nor will it change that women still earn less than men. 

Conservatives didn’t come up with any of these reasons to honor Tubman with a place on the $20. Oh well. Maybe they only want to honor white men.

Musical genius Prince died on Thursday, and while virtually the entire world mourned His Royal Badness, wingnuts made asses of themselves as usual.

• Asked by Fox News to eulogize Prince, former actress Stacey Dash said, “You didn’t look at him as a black artist or an artists of any color.” Sure, if you didn’t look at him at all. After all, how could you look at a man who embodied the guitar artistry of Jimi Hendrix, the soulful dance moves of James Brown, the showmanship of Little Richard, and the romantic wizardry of Smokey Robinson as black?
• Fortunately, Van Jones had the antidote to Dash’s dumbassedness.
• MSNBC host Joe Scarborough fell flat in a lame attempt to compare Donald Trump to Prince.
• Sheriff Joe Arpaio couldn’t resist making a complete ass of himself. Arpaio tweeted and deleted, “Condolences to family of Prince who allegedly died of drug overdose. Just celebrated 20 yrs of drug rehab in my jails. Drugs destroying our nation.” Then tweeted, “Condolences to Prince family. He allegedly was treated for a drug overdose days ago. I celebrated 20 yrs of drug rehab in my jails today.” The cause of Prince’s death is undetermined. An autopsy report won’t be available for days. However, Prince had recently suffered a bout of the flu.

Here’s the rest of the best of the worst in wingnuttia this week:

• Utah Republicans passed a non-binding resolution declaring porn a “public health hazard.” In 2009, a Harvard Business School study found that Utah residents were the highest per capita purchasers of online porn. So, maybe there’s something to it.
• Right-wing broadcaster Rick Joyner claimed that “our people died” because Russia and China “hacked in” to Hillary Clinton’s private email server.”
• It’s official, the Texas GOP will debate secession at its state convention.
• Spartanburg County, South Carolina Sheriff Chuck Wright told the Greenville-Spartanburg Republican Women that the NAACP was a racist organization. “I think the most racist people in America right now sometimes are minorities,” Wright opined.
• Having apparently learned something from North Carolina, Tennessee state Republican Rep. Susan Lynn tabled her anti-transgender bill for “further study.
• Meanwhile, Tennessee House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick (R) threatened to punish companies that opposed a anti-transgender bathroom bill with a special tax hike.
• American Family Association field director Rob Chambers blamed critics of anti-LGBT state laws on “Satan.”
• Pat Robertson is “simply appalled” a backlash to North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law, and told “700 Club” viewers that most transgender people are frauds.
• In a bizarre attempt to overturn legal same-sex marriage, Chris Sevier is suing for the right to marry his laptop computer in two states, and plans to file suits in 12 more. Sevier, a self-described Christian music producer, was charged with stalking country singer John Rich in 2013, as well as stalking a teenage girl.