What Is Washington DC? A Wonksplainer Just For You, Jeb!
DC is awesome and Jeb can suck it.
For a man applying for public housing in DC for the next four to eight years, Jeb Bush sure does seem to loathe it with the passion of a thousand low-energy suns. As a privileged son-and-brother-of-a-president golden-spoon-bred asshole, he gives zero shits about the real human beings who work and drink and screw and live and breathe in our nation’s capital.
“Let’s disrupt Washington — let’s create a little bit of a recession in Washington, D.C.,” Jeb said, “so that we can have economic prosperity outside of Washington.”
And about the local Sunday-playing sportsball team with the racist name, Jeb said this:
“Now, there was a big argument about the Washington Redskins, the ‘Redskins’ being a pejorative term. I think ‘Washington’ is the pejorative term, not the ‘Redskins.’”
Wow, what an asshole. Let’s go over a few facts.
Washington DC is a city of more than 650,000 people. We are real people, with real jobs and real families and real mortgages. We are people who get a drink after work at DC Reynolds , maybe attend the Fringe Festival to catch a local theater company performing a cool show, or get hammered at the H Street Country Club the night after hearing a great band at the Black Cat .
Sure, we also have douchebags who will vomit their Jumbo Slice outside of Madam’s Organ on a Saturday night. We even have a few Republicans.
If we could have a voice in Congress (more on that later), we would vote for policies that help ALL Americans. Things like Obamacare, to give healthcare to the folks in rural Kentucky, and fully funding Planned Parenthood so that teenage girls in backwoods Alabama can learn how babby is formed. We're pro-weed ! The people of DC want ALL Americans to prosper. Because we are not assholes.
Now, the reason people think they don't like DC is simple: politicians. And while it's true that some are awesome (hi there, Elijah Cummings !), many others are complete dicks . But of all the 650,000 people who call DC home, we have one thing in common: Not one of us is a voting member of Congress. Do you know why? It is because the tax-paying, hard-working, harder-drinking beautiful people of DC are not allowed to have voting representation in Congress. Not a representative in the House. No senators in the Senate. Sure, we have Eleanor Holmes Norton, a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. She's awesome. But the lack of a vote equals a lack of full participation in democracy.
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All the politicians people love to hate come from the rest of America. They send us the lying , cheating, stealing dregs of their districts, then blame us because they are corrupt and incompetent ? Maybe if they stopped electing these people, our city would have a better reputation.
The good citizens of DC pay the same taxes as yokels from Kansas, but have exactly ZERO opportunity to influence what our federal tax rate will be. Does Jeb think that’s funny? Is it hilarious to wish hard times on already disenfranchised citizens who have no say in federal policies? Is that the kind of America he wants? Does he not know that federal policies affect us just as much as they do hapless dimwits in Texas who voted for Ted Cruz? The population of DC is higher than some states (looking at you, Wyoming), but still our voices are silenced in the halls of Congress, where members won’t even take meetings with us, because they don't serve the second-class unrepresented rejects of the District of Columbia.
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Why would we expect Jeb or his GOP brethren in Congress to know anything about DC? Jeb only comes here for fancy fundraisers. And when members of Congress bother showing up for work in DC, they fly in late Monday night and fly back to their corner of "real America" Thursday afternoon, to bash us on TV and radio. They don’t spend their weekends at Eastern Market, or dealing with the interminable delays on metro. They don’t go to Two Amy’s for the best pizza in the city or have embarrassing stories of havingonetwelve too many drinks at Trusty’s . They would never join the drum circle in Malcolm X Park.
Jeb says the mere existence of his fellow tax-paying citizens is “pejorative,” our lives and livelihoods an unwelcome nuisance in his eyes. He’s mocking us for cheap laughs and campaign donations, in hopes of coming here to make life worse for those of us who call this place home.
Well, Jeb, we don’t want you here. We are proud of our city, exploding potholes and all. While you may lack pride in our nation's capital, we don't. But before we continue with our "pejorative" little lives, let us pause and join our voices together to send a very clear and honest message:
FUCK YOU, Jeb.
[ Washington Post / Washington Post / Photo via PoPville ]
Follow DDM on Twitter ( @Wonksplainer ), where he regularly rants about DC's taxation without representation. Also, the fact that the Washington football team name is racist is so abundantly evident we didn't feel the need to address it above because only a jackass like Bush would say something so awful.
I stand corrected. Philly & Houston.
I gave a ride to a young French couple hitchhiking to the Grand Canyon and he told me he rented an apartment 2 blocks from the beach in France for the same price as Austin, Texas. I was shocked...
Along northern coast totally possible. I wouldn't think South of France but I've never been.
We have friends in Chicago who used to live in Philly and said It's similarly priced.
Even out of the way, non-urban places have become very expensive in U.S. We were told DC became pricey because of property insurance increasing after the Pentagon was attacked.
We were told this by wealthy people in real estate business. Never made sense to me.