What Is It You’d Say You Do Here? DC Edition
Here’s a summary: Homicides are way up, carjackings & other violent crimes are way up, kids are not in school, and people are still getting sick.
I live in Washington, DC. Not a nearby suburb, not just off a metro stop outside the city, I live in the District of Columbia. There was something about that I always really liked and was oddly proud of. I say ‘was’ because that is no longer true. What has played out in DC this past year is probably similar to what’s happened in many places across the country. There is no way to honestly look at what has transpired and come to any other conclusion: Our leadership has failed us.
There’s a line in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story by Cotton McKnight that is particularly apt here.
“This sport doesn’t build character. It reveals it.”
Now that’s a comedy, a funny movie about a sport children play in gym class when the gym teacher doesn’t feel like coming up with something creative. In real life, it is human nature, when risk is removed and we are unchallenged, for us to become complacent. That’s in all walks of life. We see it in sports, the great team that cruised the last part of the season who couldn’t turn it back on for the playoffs. We see it in financial markets when years of risk free mortgages were backed by the government, and everyone watches in horror as the bottom falls out and retirements go up in smoke. We see it here, across this country when we were all caught with our pants down with this devastating pandemic. Look, I was wrong about this thing too. I was on the radio telling people to ‘calm down and to wash their hands’ all the way up until March 12th. We’d heard all this hysteria from the media about the next terrifying thing for years. We were all supposed to freak out about Swine Flu, Avian Flu, SARS, Zika virus, and so on. So yeah, I was wrong. I’m also a sports radio host and comedian and in no way qualified or responsible for the well being of American citizens. The very people that we pay, us, you and me, failed us all. At every level. The Big Orange Man was the easy target and in no way should this piece be seen as a defense of Trump’s gross mishandling of this crisis. State and local officials strategy, with some notable exceptions, was to blame Trump and kick the can down the road waiting for a vaccine.
Here in DC, Mayor Bowser, who has attempted to use the horrid events of 2020 to increase her profile and preen for the higher ups in her party, has presided over a true wilting of our city and its diverse citizenry. To expound on the summary above:
-Cases continue to rise. People are getting sick. It’s heartbreaking. Mayor Bowser’s strategy back in June was this: https://wamu.org/story/20/09/14/emails-suggest-d-c-removed-coronavirus-data-from-website-as-officials-pushed-to-reopen/ The old ‘don’t share the data and just move onto Phase 2' strategy. So, as residents were getting sick, and despite all the science we get yelled at every day to follow, DC allowed indoor dining and had bars open. Kids were not in school, but you could get drunk! A fun extra bonus here was city administration officials becoming incredibly vigilant in fining these establishments, who are just trying to do everything they can to stay afloat, for violations of the obstacle course of impossible to follow rules. Did you know that if a patron was at the bar, there can’t be a bartender? Good luck getting a drink without violating some rules. The mayor’s response was to add some states to the comically unenforceable ‘mandatory quarantine’ list.
-Homicides are up: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/homicides-rise-washington/2020/12/31/59dd659e-3953-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html We get into some sensitive areas here. I don’t shy away from that. 920 shootings, nearly 200 killings, a 67% increase from just 3 years ago. The mayor’s response? Some photo ops along with protestors (violating the city’s Coronavirus rules).
-Carjackings and other violent crimes are up: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/dc-carjacking-car-theft/2020/12/22/35b8b812-4123-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html So lockdowns have consequences? Huh. The mayor’s response? See above.
-Children not in schools and an absolute embarrassing mess of a process: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/washington-dc-failed-school-reopening/2021/01/02/af6d6b56-2532-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html This is the largest and least forgivable transgression by city officials. I am no expert. Honestly, it may not have been possible to get kids into school. I don’t know the logistics of how it might have worked or how the virus would have performed. I’ve read the same things you likely have about how schools are not viewed as super spreaders but again, unpredictable. Where was the prioritization? Where was emphasis? Where was the desperation to get kids back in school? I won’t pander to you with all the info that you undoubtedly know about underserved areas, and how critical it is for children to be in school. We all know how essential it is. The mayor didn’t consult the education task force or principals, allowed bars to limp along, allowed people to gather in public (albeit for worthwhile causes), and her administration and most specifically DCPS had no coherent plan and seemed constantly on its heels in dealing with the teachers union (plenty to fault there but that’s another post) as they were flying blind. The mayor’s response? A futile DC statehood campaign that had no realistic chance of passing.
None of this is easy. Anyone who says it is has an agenda. It is also PRECISELY what the job entails. Elected representative are paid to plan, protect, and worry about things so we, the citizens of this country don’t have to. We cannot live our lives, raise our children, work more hours than our parents did, and have time to read and digest House Bill HR-2368 and the proposed amendments. We pay people to do that for us and if we don’t like the results, we can fire them and promote someone else. Well, this pandemic asked more from our leaders than just about any event in my lifetime. The bill came due. How did they respond? By pedantically lecturing us for not adequately following their hypocritical and unenforceable rules, blaming others, and concocting half measures that hurt everyone (see above). Simply unacceptable.
Danny Rouhier’s radio show: The Grant & Danny Show airs from 2–6:30pm Monday-Friday on 106.7 The Fan In Washington, DC and his weekly podcast ‘You Seem Interesting’ is available at patreon.com/funnydanny
