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Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump to Washington: Drop dead
Disdain for Washington is the birthright of every American, indeed the entire English-speaking world. In his two-volume travelogue, 'North America,' English novelist Anthony Trollope described the still-incomplete city he found in 1861 'as melancholy and miserable a town as the mind of man can conceive.' He paints a picture of a transient, small city with neither robust commerce nor gracious society, and it didn't get any better from there. 'So men ate, and drank, and laughed, waiting till chaos should come,' he wrote. 'Secure in the belief that the atoms into which their world would resolve itself would connect themselves again in some other form without trouble on their part.' Mark Leibovich could lift that whole and use it in his next book. Which all makes sense, because no city of any significant size would have ever sprung up on the marshy banks of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Denied a great harbor, like nearby Baltimore, in order to be built inland and sheltered from invasion — which didn't even work — neither was Washington afforded a pleasant climate like the nearby foothills of the Blue Ridge. But Washington, born of a compromise between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, wasn't supposed to be a marvelous place to live and work. It was supposed to belong to no other region, a geographic leftover to which the unlovely work of government could be relegated. Like putting a power plant downriver from a city, Washington was supposed to do important, dirty work, not be beloved. Add in the very American tendency to resent those with pretenses to authority, especially when they use that authority to take people's money to spend poorly and devise rules that they do not follow themselves, and Washington was born to be disdained. But there is no class of people in the world with a more robust contempt for Washington than New Yorkers, the city that had the capital when it was traded away in 1790. It is congenital for them. Archetypal New Yorker Nora Ephron, who lived in Washington during her brief marriage to celebrity journalist Carl Bernstein, called it a city 'where ideas went to die.' Indeed, there is a whole journalistic subgenre of New Yorkers dumping on Washington. Once, in a pool report about then-President-elect Barack Obama visiting The Washington Post in 2009, a New York Times reporter even got in a jab at 'the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L.' A fair swipe at a city the architecture of which juxtaposes neoclassical grandeur with what appears to be a collection of Hampton Inns with metal detectors. New Yorkers particularly resent Washington's pretensions. A twelfth the size of the Big Apple — smaller than flyover places like Oklahoma City and Indianapolis that would never dare to rival New York — where does Washington, some middling city full of bureaucrats, hack pols, nerds and sticky-faced middle schoolers gawking at lunar capsules, get off? So, Donald Trump, a person who could have been produced by no city other than New York, is being very true to his roots as he declares a kind of summer-weight martial law for Washington. Citing a statute that allows the president to nationalize the city's police when 'special conditions of an emergency nature exist,' Trump has taken command of the cops and called out the National Guard. The emergency, Trump says with a New Yorker's gift for restraint, is 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.' There is less violent crime in Washington than when he started his first term eight years ago, but as presidents have learned too well, an emergency is in the eye of the declarer. Congress, which is actually responsible for D.C. according to the Constitution, will no doubt assert its rightful authority here and push back against this unprecedented overreach. Right after they get done stopping the emergency tariff powers, the emergency immigration powers, the emergency energy powers and the drug emergency powers. No, we know that Washington is still Trollope's Washington. But now, they don't even eat, drink and laugh as they wait for the atoms of their world 'to connect themselves again in some other form without trouble on their part.' It's all joyless livestreams, lukewarm, protein-rich quinoa bowls and 6 a.m. cold plunges. There isn't even any smoke in the smoke-filled rooms. If Republicans love to hate Washington, though, the Democrats have the opposite problem: They hate to love it. Dems have spent nearly 40 years committed to the cause of statehood for the District, a constitutional no-no that is still irresistible to them for the promise of three Electoral College votes, two new senators and another seat in the House that would all be blue in perpetuity. The party line is that Washingtonians are some kind of American Gazans, denied self-governance by colonizers. But getting Americans to care so much about a place that is known as 'Hollywood for ugly people' is a tough pull, especially when it's a company town where the company never has a recession. And so, Washington lives out its destiny as 'someplace else,' a city whose character is defined by its transience — a place where all the most notable residents are from someplace else. Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for The Hill, veteran campaign and elections journalist and best-selling author of books about American political history. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
14 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump to Washington: Drop dead
Disdain for Washington is the birthright of every American, indeed the entire English-speaking world. In his two-volume travelogue, 'North America,' English novelist Anthony Trollope described the still-incomplete city he found in 1861 'as melancholy and miserable a town as the mind of man can conceive.' He paints a picture of a transient, small city with neither robust commerce nor gracious society, and it didn't get any better from there. 'So men ate, and drank, and laughed, waiting till chaos should come,' he wrote. 'Secure in the belief that the atoms into which their world would resolve itself would connect themselves again in some other form without trouble on their part.' Mark Leibovich could lift that whole and use it in his next book. Which all makes sense, because no city of any significant size would have ever sprung up on the marshy banks of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Denied a great harbor, like nearby Baltimore, in order to be built inland and sheltered from invasion — which didn't even work — neither was Washington afforded a pleasant climate like the nearby foothills of the Blue Ridge. But Washington, born of a compromise between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, wasn't supposed to be a marvelous place to live and work. It was supposed to belong to no other region, a geographic leftover to which the unlovely work of government could be relegated. Like putting a power plant downriver from a city, Washington was supposed to do important, dirty work, not be beloved. Add in the very American tendency to resent those with pretenses to authority, especially when they use that authority to take people's money to spend poorly and devise rules that they do not follow themselves, and Washington was born to be disdained. But there is no class of people in the world with a more robust contempt for Washington than New Yorkers, the city that had the capital when it was traded away in 1790. It is congenital for them. Archetypal New Yorker Nora Ephron, who lived in Washington during her brief marriage to celebrity journalist Carl Bernstein, called it a city 'where ideas went to die.' Indeed, there is a whole journalistic subgenre of New Yorkers dumping on Washington. Once, in a pool report about then-President-elect Barack Obama visiting The Washington Post in 2009, a New York Times reporter even got in a jab at 'the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L.' A fair swipe at a city the architecture of which juxtaposes neoclassical grandeur with what appears to be a collection of Hampton Inns with metal detectors. New Yorkers particularly resent Washington's pretensions. A twelfth the size of the Big Apple — smaller than flyover places like Oklahoma City and Indianapolis that would never dare to rival New York — where does Washington, some middling city full of bureaucrats, hack pols, nerds and sticky-faced middle schoolers gawking at lunar capsules, get off? So, Donald Trump, a person who could have been produced by no city other than New York, is being very true to his roots as he declares a kind of summer-weight martial law for Washington. Citing a statute that allows the president to nationalize the city's police when 'special conditions of an emergency nature exist,' Trump has taken command of the cops and called out the National Guard. The emergency, Trump says with a New Yorker's gift for restraint, is 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.' There is less violent crime in Washington than when he started his first term eight years ago, but as presidents have learned too well, an emergency is in the eye of the declarer. Congress, which is actually responsible for D.C. according to the Constitution, will no doubt assert its rightful authority here and push back against this unprecedented overreach. Right after they get done stopping the emergency tariff powers, the emergency immigration powers, the emergency energy powers and the drug emergency powers. No, we know that Washington is still Trollope's Washington. But now, they don't even eat, drink and laugh as they wait for the atoms of their world 'to connect themselves again in some other form without trouble on their part.' It's all joyless livestreams, lukewarm, protein-rich quinoa bowls and 6 a.m. cold plunges. There isn't even any smoke in the smoke-filled rooms. If Republicans love to hate Washington, though, the Democrats have the opposite problem: They hate to love it. Dems have spent nearly 40 years committed to the cause of statehood for the District, a constitutional no-no that is still irresistible to them for the promise of three Electoral College votes, two new senators and another seat in the House that would all be blue in perpetuity. The party line is that Washingtonians are some kind of American Gazans, denied self-governance by colonizers. But getting Americans to care so much about a place that is known as 'Hollywood for ugly people' is a tough pull, especially when it's a company town where the company never has a recession. And so, Washington lives out its destiny as 'someplace else,' a city whose character is defined by its transience — a place where all the most notable residents are from someplace else.
New York Times
13-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Obama Isn't Going to Save You
For those who are paying attention and care at all about human decency, the Trump administration's political chaos and social instability is a challenge that's making some well-meaning people say some strange things. One of the strangest can be attributed to Obama derangement syndrome. O.D.S. sounds sensible enough. Barack Obama was a popular president. His approval rating was a solid 59 percent when he left office. That was just a little off from his high of 69 percent in 2009. YouGov data from this year ranks him as the second-most-popular politician, after Jimmy Carter. More important than how much people still like Obama, is that a lot of people felt really good about themselves when he was president. Nostalgia is a heck of a drug. Compared with Joe Biden and President Trump, Obama looks healthy. His speech at the Democratic National Convention last year showed that he still has the juice. And the moment feels important. Trump took the country into dangerous territory this week. He attempted to take control of the California National Guard and has deployed a Marine battalion to rein in protesting Angelenos. Meanwhile, a line of tanks will soon fête the president in his Army birthday parade, a galling display of authoritarian theater. This week the writer Mark Leibovich leveled up dinner party and social media murmurs about Obama's whereabouts with an essay asking why the former president has been missing in action. The question speaks to an accepted truth: The Democratic Party lacks leadership. Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Cory Booker and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offer glimmers of a charismatic party head waiting in the wings. But Obama is the complete package with a track record. That idea has enough common-sense appeal to feel right. Unfortunately, it is absolute madness. I don't know which Obama some of my peers remember, but the ex-president was fairly consistent. He governed as a moderate who, at one time, would have been recognizable as a Reaganite. Only in the rightward drift of today's Overton window does Obama's presidency seem radically leftist. As the Democratic Party's leader, he chastised those on the left, threw in the occasional respectability politics about young Black men and sagging pants and gave us an imperfect but critical stop on the road to universal health care. He was a decent president of historical import, but he was still very much a product of his times. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Takes Aim at American Institutions
Editor's Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here. As Donald Trump nears the end of his first 100 days in office, his administration continues to take aim at many American institutions. Panelists joined Washington Week With The Atlantic last night to discuss the administration's stance on the courts, universities, government agencies, and more. Meanwhile, this week Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told voters that 'we are all afraid,' adding that she's anxious about using her voice, 'because retaliation is real.' 'It is so pervasive, what she is talking about,' Mark Leibovich said last night. She's not talking about 'political intimidation like Elon Musk throwing a bunch of money at an opponent or someone being primaried.' He continued, 'She's talking about physical fear.' Murkowski's sentiments are also not isolated, Leibovich added. 'It's been a real hallmark of this era,' he said. 'Governing is supposed to take place by politics, by persuasion, by debate. Authoritarianism is by intimidation, by threat, by violence in some cases.' Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Laura Barrón-López, a White House Correspondent for PBS News Hour; Eugene Daniels, a senior Washington correspondent and incoming co-host of The Weekend at MSNBC; and Mark Leibovich, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Watch the full episode here. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump Takes Aim at American Institutions
Editor's Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here. As Donald Trump nears the end of his first 100 days in office, his administration continues to take aim at many American institutions. Panelists joined Washington Week With The Atlantic last night to discuss the administration's stance on the courts, universities, government agencies, and more. Meanwhile, this week Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told voters that 'we are all afraid,' adding that she's anxious about using her voice, 'because retaliation is real.' 'It is so pervasive, what she is talking about,' Mark Leibovich said last night. She's not talking about 'political intimidation like Elon Musk throwing a bunch of money at an opponent or someone being primaried.' He continued, 'She's talking about physical fear.' Murkowski's sentiments are also not isolated, Leibovich added. 'It's been a real hallmark of this era,' he said. 'Governing is supposed to take place by politics, by persuasion, by debate. Authoritarianism is by intimidation, by threat, by violence in some cases.' Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Laura Barrón-López, a White House Correspondent for PBS News Hour; Eugene Daniels, a senior Washington correspondent and incoming co-host of The Weekend at MSNBC; and Mark Leibovich, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Watch the full episode here.
