What a DC Resident Knows About Representation

KJS Washington DC Money bags, Don’t do their job

I live in Washington, D.C. This city—your capital—the one that represents every single state in this country. Big state or small, you have the same say here. Your senators walk these streets. Your representatives work in these buildings. The institutions here exist to serve you.

20 years here, I always saw living in D.C. as a physical manifestation of American democracy—our location-based representation where Wyoming gets the same standing as California, where rural and urban Americans come together to govern themselves. DC is not some liberal bastion; its actually filled with people who care deeply about democracy, who care about good government and devote their lives to public service.

Since the “MAGA” propaganda campaign, all you hear is how D.C. is the enemy, how this city is corrupt – how the “swamp” needs draining. Somehow, Washington became everything wrong with America.

Let me tell you what D.C. really is: It’s your representatives, your government, your capital. When you attack D.C., you’re attacking yourself and the only mechanism you have to hold power accountable.

I live here. I pay federal taxes. And I have zero accountable representatives to call right now.

Everyone else in America does.

The Representation You’re Wasting

You have senators. You have a House representative. You have people whose job is to listen when you call, to respond when you write, to show up when you demand it.

Right now, those representatives are letting the government shut down for four weeks while military families miss paychecks. They’re watching but not acting, as a president move billions of dollars without authorization. They’re silent while agricultural aid gets frozen and farmers who voted for this administration lose their life savings.

If you’re not calling your representatives right now, you’re not paying attention or you’re complicit.

I don’t have that luxury. I can’t call my senator. I don’t have one. I can’t pressure my voting representative. I don’t have one. I can yell and scream at everyone else’s representatives but they don’t work for me.

You have power I don’t have. And you’re not using it.

What MAGA really means

If you claim you’re a MAGA fan at this point, you’re either a racist or you’re willfully ignoring the racism that defines the movement. That’s so obvious at this point, it can’t even be propagandized anymore. The white supremacy is documented. If you’re a MAGA fan still, you are a racist.

The replacement of USAID—an agency that buys $2 billion in products from American farmers annually and employs 13,000 Americans—with nothing is the most obvious emblem of racism in the MAGA campaign, also clearly a quest to end “loving your neighbor” Christian heritage. It’s was not about efficiency. It was about eliminating institutions that serve non-white populations globally…just pretending it was fiscal responsibility.

Hum-bug.

If you voted for this because you thought it would bring great economic rewards, ask your local cattleman what he thinks of the MAGA promise now. Ask him about the Argentina beef imports that are undercutting American ranchers. Ask him if “America First” feels like America first when his herd is threatened by screwworm and the president is bailing out foreign competitors instead.

If you cared about clearing the country of “illegals,” you’re either some form of racist or you genuinely believe your livelihood is being overtaken by the constant influx of immigrants we’ve had since the beginning of American democracy. That fear isn’t new. It’s been used to justify discrimination against Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans—every wave of immigrants that built this country while being told they were destroying it.

The luxury of holding them accountable

Let’s say you don’t think like the rest of the movement. Let’s say you don’t believe women should be at home cooking. Let’s say you’re not a white supremacist. Let’s say you’re a fair-minded person who got sold a bill of goods about draining the swamp and bringing back jobs and making America great.

You should definitely be calling your representative by now.

You have the luxury of having someone to call. You have the constitutional right to hold your government accountable through elected representatives who must answer to you.

The seven hundred thousand Americans who live in D.C. don’t have that right. We pay federal taxes with no representation—the exact tyranny that sparked the American Revolution—while you complain about the city that houses the representatives you refuse to call.

Your Stomping Ground

D.C. isn’t the enemy. D.C. is your capital. This is where your fat cats come to overeat and corrupt among themselves. This is where your lobbyists spend millions to convince your representatives to ignore you. This is where your senators and House members choose their donors over their constituents.

And you think they’re heroes.

They’re not. The whole thing is a decaying economy of corrupt non-DC politicians. Unless you use the power you actually have—the power to call, to demand, to hold accountable—it’s going to keep falling apart.

You’ll have absolutely noting to hold onto. Federal powers will become a tool of the elite, thanks to your complicity.

I wrote about the silence that comes from fear of expressing your opinion, pluralistic ignorance. This is what cowardice actually looks like: having representatives corrupt themselves with no concern for the American who voted for them. And those who have the constitutional right to representation refusing to exercise it while democracy collapses.

This is the Cowardice that will be written about in history books.

What This City Is Built On

Washington, D.C. was built on a simple idea: representatives standing up for your interests. Not corporate interests. Not foreign interests. Not presidential interests. Your interests.

Every building in this city exists because Americans believed that regular people—farmers, workers, business owners, families—deserved a voice in their government. The Capitol building, the Senate offices, the House chambers—these are physical monuments to the principle that power should answer to the people.

That only works if you make them answer.

Your representatives work here. For you. They live here part-time. On your dime. They walk past my house, eat at my restaurants, use my Metro. Representing you. They exist in my city, which I pay for, to serve you.

So when you call D.C. corrupt, you in fact are the corrupt one. When you say the swamp needs draining, it’s your elected officials that need firing. When you attack this city, you’re attacking the only institutional mechanism that gives you power.

I live in the capital of American democracy and have no democratic representation. You live in actual democracy and refuse to use it.

That’s not patriotism. That’s not loving your country – putting it First. That’s surrendering your power. Not caring. And that’s just weak.

When you refuse to use power—don’t call, don’t write, don’t show up, don’t demand accountability—you’re proving that you never actually cared in the first place.

Once your representatives learn they don’t have to listen to you because you won’t make them, you are cut out.

Call Your Democracy Now

Now that your team is in power, you’ve decided accountability doesn’t matter anymore? I really doubt that. Any true American can see this is chaos just to breed more power.

That’s not who we are, no matter what you believe, this we know is true.

Use your constitutional rights they’re taken away. At this rate, they absolutely will be.

Call your senator. Call your House representative. Tell them the shutdown is unacceptable. Would you get a month off to do no work or not try?

Tell them moving money without authorization is illegal.

Tell them your district needs support, not foreign corrupt actors.

Tell them that tax money to employ American workers, buy American products and save lives is a good thing.

Tell them you’re watching. Not just paying attention but that you will exercise your vote against them unless they do what you need.

Don’t whisper. Don’t hope someone else does it. Don’t wait for the next election. Call. Today. Now.

I’m writing this from your capital, the city that symbolizes American democracy, without the democratic rights you’re choosing not to exercise.

This city you claim to hate is as polarized as its been in twenty years. We’ve never had an administrating government sowing division like this, making up stories 24/7 thinking the truth might change.

This new faction of the GOP treats its constituents like idiots, that’s all I can say from where I stand.

We forget in such hate-filled political environment that our elected officials are designed to work together not like packs and predators. Their job is not to out-corrupt the other, but find middle ground. Because that’s where we live. We don’t live in the bubble of a capital where everything is about politics. We live back home, in life, where there really aren’t politics – there are simply issues.

Unless you call. Unless you show up. Unless you demand they do their jobs.

This is your democracy. Use it or lose it.