Locals may differ; they almost always do. (Don't expect me to applaud my mayor's coronavirus response, despite her national rep.) But from afar, it seems Bowser's a done decent job in an impossible position and year, both in affirming Black Lives Matter and trying to bring order to a city abandoned by Donald Trump's federal government which controls most of the levers of power.
Certainly she supplants for the title that delusional conman from New York who had one good afternoon 20 years ago and now awaits a much needed pardon from his criminal client and overlord.
Bowser's legal inability to extract assistance from the feds and to command her own National Guard add to the case for DC statehood. I don't know if the Dems have enough votes to deliver; all it would take is a majority vote and presidential signature. But one or two lawmakers and the President himself could gum up the works, again.
Some facts about DC statehood: the new jurisdiction would immediately become the most Black state with currently something like a 46 percent Black population. Though that's a high proportion, it's nothing like the "chocolate" Washington that Erudite Partner grew up in during the 1960s -- truly an overwhelmingly Black city.
DC's population is larger than that of Vermont and Wyoming.
Because DC is entirely an urban city center, the new state's GDP would be 1st per capita in the nation, and 1st by median household income. That doesn't mean everyone is Washington is rich. Poor residents (essential workers, perhaps?) have been pushed east across the Anacostia River where, in 2016, the poverty rate was 33 percent.
Residents of the District are U.S. citizens; they have long deserved their own state government.
1 comment:
I won't hold my breath for D.C. to finally become a state, but miracles do happen.
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