For swamp dwellers who don't have mansions in the Virginia suburbs the way Lois Lerner did, it's tough being a resident of Washington, D.C.
Which is why this article, by Politico journalist Michael Schaffer on why the locals hate the U.S. National Parks Service is so interesting.
He begins with this problem and then takes a deep dive into why it's a problem and the efforts to fix it:
If you live in Washington, the National Park Service is a weirdly big part of your life. The federal agency controls up to 90 percent of the city’s open space, a sprawling collection that ranges from the National Mall to hundreds of random traffic circles, grassy triangles and neighborhood gathering places, at least 356 in all.
Invariably, this accident of history leads to conflicts: Locals want a playground or a dog run or a lure for nearby businesses or, in one especially enervating case, a place for an LGBTQ+ bocce ball league to convene on Thursday nights. Park Service officials, following a rulebook more suited to Yellowstone than to a modest city park, nix it in the name of preservation or heritage or nitpicky regulations about organized sports.
It makes for an absolutely rotten way to run either a big city or a high-profile government agency —
Which sounds pretty wretched, having a big central authority to always tell you 'no' when all you want is a dog park, because its template of rules isn't designed for city living. Locals have indeed tried to fix that, to no avail.
One such issue described is the case of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal in Georgetown, which is a total eyesore and scary at night. Nobody can make it commercially viable or liveable or pretty to look at because the Park Service says it needs it to stay in its bleak way for historic preservation.
Schaffer has a good photo in his piece, showing how godawful that place looks. Yes, it does have a 19th century vibe but why would anyone want to preserve that instead of making it a lively commercial district that would improve the liveability of the city? Only a bureaucrat could cheer at leaving it the way it is because regulations.
The city itself has many historic places but it's strange to treat it like an untouchable museum. The rules make no sense. It would even be possible to keep the character of the place largely the same yet still allow at least farmer's market tents or something.
Now let's cut to the chase: Some political leaders understand this. And some do not.
Several proponents of a reimagined canal noted to me that they’d gotten their warmest reception from the Park Service during the years when Donald Trump was in the White House, but things went south after about 2021, when Joe Biden took office.
It was, by all accounts, a function of the career bureaucrats who happened to move in and out of key roles overseeing the canal, not a directive from the politicals in either administration. But if you are atop an administration, wouldn’t it be more attractive to get rid of the system under which you could even plausibly get blamed by either side in what ought to be the ultimate local-yokel debate?
Schaffer is a good reporter, but his conclusion doesn't match up with what he just described.
The residents got the door opened to them and their concerns heard during the Trump administration.
They got the door slammed in their faces during the Biden years and were effectively told too bad if they don't like it, hain't we got the power? It's just like things are done in lands with socialist commissars such as Venezuela and Cuba.
The change in attitudes is very striking, and obviously a function of the leadership at the top.
Biden doesn't care if residents have to live on an ugly eyesore canal and too bad if they pay rent, real estate costs, and taxes as if they were millionaires, which some are.
Trump, though, listens, and not only listens, but has his minions at the Park Service take an interest in aesthetics and liveability for those who live under their particular rule.
On the one hand, that's not surprising, given that Trump was and is a real estate magnate who understands well how location, location, location affect real estate and quality of life.
What better way to make the value of real estate go up than to make it attractive and liveable, the kind of place people would like to live in? It's natural.
But that is to scratch the surface.
Deep down, Trump has a certain capacity for leadership -- not unlike that of Roman emperors Trajan or Hadrian actually, both of whom were known for all the beautiful monuments and landmarks that they left behind in Rome, many of which are still there.
Trump understands in an elemental way why external appearances are important for conveying the majesty and beauty and grandness because of their capacity to inspire. He has always had this leaderly "Roman emperor" sense of place and space, and obviously, it extended into his presidency.
It's well known that he commands visual landmarks specifically to inspire.
During his presidency, he commanded all federal buildings to follow the beautiful federalist style of architecture, as if building a "brand" of greatness. Leftists scoffed, but he was right. Ugly buildings don't inspire. They provoke graffiti and contempt. Beautiful buildings remind people of who they are. Trump wanted beautiful buildings.
Joe Biden got rid of that, and he has no interest in aesthetics or appearances. He's a vulgar man who not only restores the world of ugly things for people even in places like Georgetown, all in the name of government power. Worse still, he also fails to listen, with the Parks Service under his leadership a nasty closed door to the locals.
Now the Georgetown people have to live with the bare, ugly canal at their doorsteps because of Joe Biden and his bureaucrats' "historic preservation."
While it's doubtful that they'll make a connection between those slammed doors and butt-ugly canals in their front yard, it does provide a useful lesson to the rest of us about whether we as citizens are ever going to see beautiful things again as well as get listened to.
As Georgetown demonstrates, Trump and his men listen to all citizens even if they vote Democrat and he works with them to get the liveability they desire.
Joe Biden would rather keep all the power to himself, shut out even his loyal supporters, and force them to live in ugly quarters, not just because he's a vulgar man himself with no understanding of aesthetics, but just because he can.
Image: Jaakko H., via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0
