Letter From Washington
This place has been changed since last I was here both by the pandemic and by politics.
The last time I arrived in Washington, D.C. was January 8, 2021. I was on the final leg of a trip from New England to El Paso, Texas and back. I was conducting a survey of “America in Transition.” I did not know I’d be arriving to a crime scene in Washington when I planned the trip that’s just the way it turned out.
The previous year had already turned our capital into a fortress of security barriers and businesses boarded up against potential street violence. It is as if the people who lived there understood something might be about to happen, but no one knew exactly what.
Thankfully, on this most recent return visit some of the security barriers have come down, but not all. Businesses are no longer boarded up in anticipation of street battles, but many have been shuttered by the pandemic. Like cities around the country, business and government leaders are trying to figure out what to do with all the un-used office space. The perpetual growth of the city - fueled by predictable increases in government spending - seems not as perpetual as it once was. Betting on the future of the D.C. economy still seems like a good bet, but not a sure thing.
As hundreds of the rioters who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago face justice, in one form or another, their actions continue to cost the rest of us. Washington, D.C. is supposed to belong to everyone, but the rioters did succeed in making it less accessible.
The White House is ringed by a deeper zone of security. Pennsylvania Avenue, once an open mall for pedestrians, protestors, and visitors from around the world, is now closed off to the average person without a security pass.
While the U.S. Capitol is slightly more accessible, there is a deliberate ambiguity about how close you can get. The Capitol Police will not chase you off the grounds, but nor do they invite you in. If you think you are not allowed to walk across the East Front of the building, no one goes out of their way to correct that impression. Many of the government buildings we own are no longer open to all. The physical architecture of the federal government is in a permanent state of siege two years later.
In that respect, the rioters won. Just as Osama Bin Laden changed air travel forever, our fellow citizens have succeeded in denying the full American experience to the great majority of the population. A few thousand changed Washington, D.C. for more than three hundred million.
The spirit of January 6th lives on in the government itself. Fringe players who won seats in Congress by claiming to represent the insurrectionist crowd now hold power over the House of Representatives. They plan to use their small block of votes to hold the rest of the government hostage. As former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on CNN last month, the leverage goes to the hostage taker “who is willing to shoot the hostage.”
A few weeks before the last election, President Biden said in a nationally televised address that throughout the course of our nation’s history, “just enough of us” have used the power of our vote to keep the country headed in the right direction. Depending on your point of view that proved to be the case in 2022. The big sweeping victory that was expected to give Republicans full control of Congress did not happen. The results are viewed by many political observers as a sign voters have rejected the kind of politics now driving the House, where Republicans did manage to gain a slim majority.
It is hard to know whether just enough of us can keep America on the right track over the next two years and beyond. What is plain to see is how American democracy influences the rest of the world in good ways and bad.
There are always those in this country who want America to withdraw from the world, but the truth is we can’t. When we do it’s bad for the rest of the world and for ourselves.
Let’s begin in Ukraine where four years of ambivalence by the previous administration - without question - helped Russian President Vladimir Putin decide it was a good idea to invade. He saw limited risk from the U.S. or its allies. It was the wrong signal for us to send. It muddled the message and has resulted in a war that has taken thousands of lives on both sides in less than a year. Many more will die in the months ahead as the war continues.
In Brazil, two years and two days after the Washington insurrection, supporters of the defeated president stormed the center of government in Brasilia in the hope their actions would lead the military to oust the rightful winner and re-install the previous administration. American style democracy.
In Peru, a battle rages between the newly installed president and her predecessor who was ousted in December after he attempted to dissolve the government and rule by decree.
We do not have a choice when it comes to engaging with the world. We are engaged whether we like it or not. What we think as Americans matters. How we conduct ourselves matters. What happens here is viewed and analyzed around the world by ordinary citizens and by leaders who emulate and innovate based on our example. It is for us to decide the nature of that example.
