James Fallows has written the definitive piece about what it really feels like to live in DC as only he can:
The purpose of this post is to say something about Washington, D.C. as a real place. Rather than as the political prop most recently weaponized by Donald Trump, in his ongoing effort to change the topic away from Jeffrey Epstein.
Donald Trump obviously does not know this city. According to press accounts, and to judge by his own rhetoric, Trump lurched into declaring a “public safety emergency” for DC based mainly on two pieces of evidence. One was the reported injury of the 19-year-old former Doge staffer Edward Coristine, generally known as “Big Balls,” in an alleged carjacking. The other was Trump’s alarm at seeing a homeless encampment while being driven from the White House to his own golf course in Northern Virginia.1
Most news reports have properly emphasized that Trump’s claim of a new crime wave in DC is the exact opposite of the truth. Crime has been going down, not up; and it is lower in DC than in at least a dozen other major US cities.
But many reports have also cut Trump some slack, by saying that it “feels like” DC is becoming more dangerous. Of course any crime is too much crime, any homeless encampment represents failures on many levels, and any encounter with a menacing person is alarming.
But let’s take a bigger and longer-term perspective on what it feels like in DC. A “feels” report is by definition subjective, and this one has all the limits of my personal experience. But that experience goes back a long way.
I urge you to read the whole thing for some much needed perspective on the “vibes.” It’s very illuminating:
He concludes with this:
A media watchword of the 2016 election was “but her emails!” A watchword of the 2024 election was “if the economy is ‘good,’ why does it ‘feel’ so bad.”
The effect in both cases was to shift discussion in a way that “normalized” Trump. Sure, he was a liar and a crook. But what about those emails! Sure, his tax and tariff plans would be disruptive. But things feel so bad now!
I’m not saying that this “normalizing” coverage changed the results last year. (It arguably did, in 2016.) I’m saying, don’t fall for this again.
And that life in our nation’s capital “feels” different from what you might have heard.
He is 100% right.