At the 2017 Women’s March in Madison, Wisconsin. Photo by Callen Harty.
Today Donald Trump, the hero of nasty women everywhere, officially pardoned Susan B. Anthony for the crime of illegally voting in 1872.
Excuse me for laughing.
If any other President, on the 100th anniversary of woman’s suffrage in the United States, issued a pardon for Anthony it would be noted as a nice symbolic gesture to mark that anniversary. But when it is Trump the immediate reaction is that this was a cynical ploy to attract the votes of those suburban housewives he so desperately needs to win the next election and to whom he has brazenly appealed to with racist overtures about protecting their neighborhoods from the residents of low income housing.
At the signing ceremony today, he noted, “She was never pardoned. Did you know that?” And one cannot be blamed for assuming he didn’t know it either until the likelihood that some staffer recently read it in an article on the suffrage anniversary and thought it would be a grand gesture and a stroke of genius that would cause women everywhere to take off their aprons and head to the polls as soon as possible.
A known misogynist accused of sexually assaulting more than two dozen women signing a pardon for one of the earliest pioneers of women’s rights is beyond ironic. It is disgusting, especially when one knows his history with women. He is opposed to a woman’s right to choose. He has repeatedly denigrated strong women, particularly in politics, but more generally any that speak out against him. He has gone to court to fight the Equal Rights Amendment. A quick Google search on Trump and women’s rights reveals site after site listing the many ways his administration’s policies have harmed women. If he had been alive when Anthony cast her vote he would have called her a nasty woman and insisted that she pay the penalty for trying to break into the old boys’ club. Or he would have grabbed her pussy simply because he was famous and could.
The second irony is that Anthony and some other suffragettes held complicated views on race. Anthony was opposed to the 15th amendment, which enshrined the idea of the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” While she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both said they opposed the amendment because it excluded women, they used racist tropes to back up their positions. One can imagine the racist Trump appreciating those viewpoints if he took the time to learn anything about it. Perhaps if he knew that part of Anthony’s history, he would have also given her a medal for defending the white race.
Finally, regardless of her faults, Anthony’s fight was to expand voting rights. Trump honoring her for that at a time when he and his Republican allies are doing everything in their power to limit voting is really not funny and I am no longer laughing. They have purged voter rolls, caused the postal service to cut hours and service, cut polling locations (particularly in minority neighborhoods), fought mail-in voting, and lied about fraud and potential issues with mailed ballots. If he thought he could get away with it, Trump would likely take the vote away from women and minorities again. If he could, he would return voting only to men who owned land. It would make it easier for him to win reelection, which is really all that he is concerned about now.
A Single Bluebird 