In Appreciation of the Imperial Captial

The Imperial Capital

Washington, D.C. is a city Americans love to hate. Years ago, on a flight from Dallas to Washington, I struck up a conversation with a fellow from Texas. It was friendly enough, but when the reason for our travels to D.C. came up, his tone changed as he delved into his bottomless pit of grievances about the city. Honestly, he was a bit of a caricature, but the knee-jerk reaction to Washington has always struck me. Moreover, Texans hardly have a monopoly on that vitriol-- there is plenty to be found in my home state of Utah, particularly when faceless "D.C. bureaucrats" (a pejorative term) impose new programs, or designate federal lands closed to development.

President Trump currently sits in the White House having generally promised to "drain the swamp"-- another pejorative denoting broad broad-based corruption, favouritism, and insider politics. Indeed, to admit to someone outside Washington hat you live inside the Beltway (Washington's ring-road) is, in some quarters, an admission that you are part of a lazy, corrupt, elite, and entitled class of parochial "insiders" that likes to tell everyone else around the country how to live.

Donald Trump is hardly the first presidential candidate to have played upon the diffuse national animosity toward Washington. George W. Bush did it. Bill Clinton did it. Ronald Reagan did it. Hollywood has been pretty good at it too; how about the mystery and faceless power of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.

I have the opportunity to call D.C. home again for the next little while (link to what I'm doing here). D.C. isn't perfect. No city is. But I love this town!!!!

... and its softer side

There, I said it. Let the vitriol rain down!!!!!

It's always been a thrill to be in this most political of towns. This city eats, sleeps, breathes, and craps politics. If you're a political junkie, the hair on your neck begins to stand up the moment you begin the corkscrew descent into Reagan National Airport. I was probably hooked even before I first visited D.C. in 1996. It's now a more familiar place, but I never get tired of the rush of being here.

An old friend of mine refers to Washington as the "Imperial Capital." Was never sure if that was a reference to Imperial Rome or to the Evil Empire in the Star Wars films, but empire might be an apt metaphor. One of the first things you notice in D.C. is the noise. The sirens of fire trucks, police cars from multiple police forces, ambulances and, of course, motorcades echo throughout the city on a near-24 hour basis. The sounds of arrivals and departures from Reagan National are constant, but periodically drown out by the thump, thump, thump of helicopters (most of them military, some of them going to get the President) buzzing the city-- it sounds like the first 10min of Apocalypse Now.

The city's power brokers and decision-makers are still mostly old men, but the life-blood of the city is really the countless, professionally hungry, young people who descend on this city every year looking for that big break. Moreover, for many of them, that hunger isn't dominated by cynicism; most want to make a difference. A lot of them arrive as interns (nearly all of whom are unpaid). Some come to study at any number of the region's universities (Georgetown, George Washington, University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins, George Mason, American University, etc). The city's think tank community is deep, covers just about every conceivable policy, from every part of the spectrum. The scholars within come from all over the world and arguably have more influence that those based in universities.

It's a thrilling, intoxicating, and addictive place to live and work. Yet, D.C. can also be a lonely place. There are hierarchies everywhere. And, with so many newly minted BA's, BSC's, MA's, MBA's, and PhD's from around the country (and the world) descending on the city, the environment is both intellectually rich, fiercely competitive, and at times regrettably self-centered. Unfortunately, who you know, where you went to school, and where you are currently working can sometimes be important markers of your relevance to anyone you might be talking to. Indeed, I've been at social functions where the person you're talking to begins to stare through you in anticipation of someone more important coming along.

Site of the Imperial Presidency?

At the same time, D.C. is one of the most vibrant cities I've ever experienced. It's a fascinating mix of people. On the one hand, many are short-timers-- here long enough to study or take up an internship. Even long-time residents often talk as though they might go back to what ever part of the country they were in before they came here-- an almost apologetic disdain for the fact they've been here so long. And then, of course, there are the real local residents, those who have called the D.C. area home for generations. There have, of course, always been simmering tensions between newcomers and some long-time residents, notably the city's African-American population.

The D.C. area has been largely immune to the recent turmoil in the U.S. economy-- post-9/11 recession, 2008 financial crisis-- in large part thanks to defense and homeland security. National security has always been good for this town, and in the last 15yrs, it's been a big driver of yet another transformation, accentuating the pace of gentrification in many areas of the city.

To some, this is progress. To those who used to live there? No so much.

When I first lived here as a student in 1999, I looked out my apartment window onto a dirt parking lot which at night seemed to double as a location for nefarious activity. On that same lot today resides a Whole Foods Market. Across the street from it are million dollar condominiums. When I first arrived here, areas to my east were full of boarded up row houses that now sell for a million dollars or more.

Rampaging Federal Civil Servant?

There is some irony in President Trump's recent budget proposals-- Defense and Homeland Security poised to be big beneficiaries. Rather than "draining the swamp" more spending on Defense and Homeland Security are poised to deepen it. 

D.C. often feels like a cosmopolitan, international city. Embassies, think-tanks, and government offices everywhere. All kinds of languages being spoken in the streets. For good or for ill, debate about politics is omnipresent. The demonisation of the public service has always bothered me. There are slackers in any bureaucracy. But the overwhelming majority of career civil servants I have met are serious professionals, driven, in part, by the idealism of public service; many could command much higher salaries in the private sector.

But, you don't have to drive very far out of the city to realize that D.C. is very much also a southern city-- linguistic diversity gives way to English with stronger southern drawl, urban stand-off-ishness changes into southern formality and courteousness (for some at least).

D.C. has deserved critique, including in local government. Anyone remember Marion Barry? At one time, D.C. was the murder capital of the country. Moreover, it's professional basketball team was, at the time, named the Washington Bullets. Local sports fans seem to engage in annual self-delusion about prospects for the Washington Redskins to win the Super Bowl. There's also perpetual complaining about the city's Metro system,

even though it's probably the best system in the United States (unlike NYC, it actually connects to two major airports), and much nicer than the Tube in London or Metro systems in Paris or Berlin. And then there's the weather-- another indicator that D.C. is a southern city. I concede that D.C. periodically gets pounded by large snow storms that would probably paralyze the likes of Chicago or Minneapolis. However, D.C. is uniquely unprepared for snow and even the rumour of snow sends people into a frenzy of panicked shopping for supplies and the closure of schools and government offices.

Yet, D.C. governance is also in a tight spot precisely because it's the federal capital. Those who come here to represent their little corner of the country aren't all that keen to appropriate scarce funds to citizens who don't vote for them. Indeed, D.C. has no representation in the very body that controls the purse strings-- the U.S. Congress.

Yet, for all of it's flaws as a "swamp"and target of Americans' frustration, it's hard to beat the solemnity of Arlington Cemetery, the Vietnam Memorial, or the Holocaust Memorial. It's equally tough to beat the historical significance and grandeur of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (MLK and "I Have a Dream" gets me every time), the intrigue of the Watergate apartment complex, or the political ambiance of Capitol Hill.