The internet—and presumably the real world—was abuzz Wednesday with the great news that abolitionist Harriet Tubman is headed to the $20 bill. The move, along with other planned changes to the currency, was largely a hit for those people who are not Ben Carson. And who better to get the ax than Andrew Jackson! The seventh U.S. president’s record as a human being while in office was pretty despicable. Good riddance! Let’s do this! But wait. Is Jackson really getting kicked off the $20?
In the excitement over Tubman’s ascension and Jackson’s long-overdue demotion, it seemed to get skipped over that Jackson’s not actually getting scrubbed from the bill—he will appear on the back of the new $20. The side of American bills typically reserved for some of our finest … buildings.
And if you don’t believe NPR or Twitter or this nifty combo of the two, there’s this from the Treasury Department press release Wednesday:
The reverse of the new $20 will feature images of the White House and President Andrew Jackson.
Alas. Somehow even this bold symbolic move has a teensy-weensy trap door built in to appease … Andrew Jackson fans? Like Ben Carson. “Andrew Jackson … was a tremendous president,” Carson told Fox Business News. “I mean, Andrew Jackson was the last president who actually balanced the federal budget, where we had no national debt.” How could we ever go on without a small Waldo-sized silhouette of the man?
Norway would have never made this mistake.
