The New Republic: Like It or Not, We Are All D.C. Now

There’s no other way to put it: The approximately 700,000 Americans who live in Washington are actual people; they are people with jobs, families, mortgages, commutes, favorite parks and neighborhood bars. They are just like us, with one major exception: They have no voting representation in the United States Congress, which operates at the United States Capitol, which sits at the center of their own city.

Maybe you’ve never thought deeply or cared about the fact that no one can cast a vote on behalf of D.C. residents in the U.S. House or Senate. Maybe you’ve never known about or considered how the District’s government does not have full autonomy like your city or mine, and that Congress, without a delegation representing D.C.’s interests, can exert undue control over D.C.’s budgets and operations. Maybe you think the D.C. license plates of “Taxation Without Representation” are cute little pieces of political paraphernalia slapped on the cars of a bunch of political robots who are more committed to the bit than to their own citizenship.

But now that a lawless president has taken over D.C. streets simply because he does not like anything D.C. represents—symbolically as a place where the federal government is practiced, or literally as an example of vibrant multicultural urban life—I need you to know that what is happening now to the people of the District is devastating, it matters, and it is only the beginning. Washington, D.C., residents are the most powerless canary in the most authoritarian coal mine. And I’m not sure people outside of Washington fully grasp how bad things are, why they should care, or how we got here. It’s never been more urgent to reckon with that’s happening in the nation’s capital, because at some point, Trump will be coming for your home as well.