Washington DC: Center of the World

Originally published on January 19th, 2025

I spent my childhood in Washington DC. Sometimes I didn’t like it. People say no one is “actually” from DC. It’s a “transient area” with people flowing in and out with each new administration. People say the city doesn’t have its own culture. The rest of the country rags on politicians and bureaucrats who suck up taxpayer dollars like leeches. Books decry that “eight of the ten wealthiest zip codes are in the DC suburbs” due to out-of-control government spending. That’s where I’m from. That’s my hometown, McLean Virginia, in the crosshairs of those comments.

But sometimes, growing up, a different feeling would hit me. I remember one Fourth of July in particular. The golden sun setting over the US Capitol. Tens of thousands of people surrounded this classical building, gathering to celebrate our nation. In that moment, the weightiness of history hit me – as if I were in the center of Rome at its peak, or Athens in the 3rd century BC. The center of the world – maybe not forever, but certainly for now. The grandeur of this oft-decried city.

I felt that feeling one time in 7th grade, when my buddy and I were going to see Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, and his dad snuck out of the house without telling the secret service and drove us to the theater (his dad was the Attorney General of the United States). Or when my other buddy’s Dad got us a tour of Bush’s Oval Office (White House General Counsel), or the Floor of the Senate when Hillary was speaking (Junior Senator from New Hampshire). Or when, in first period 8th grade English, everyone was patting my friend on the back with sympathy because his dad was on the front page of the Washington Post with multiple federal indictments for a major political scandal (not gonna say who that was. His sentence was eventually commuted by Bush).

And I feel it today. And this weekend. When the eyes of the world are upon us, us Washingtonians, once more, and we usher in a new era of government in the United States. And maybe it’ll go tremendously well, a SpaceX moment for our federal institutions. And maybe it will fail spectacularly. No one knows. But for today, and for tomorrow, my hometown is the center of the world. The air drips with history. These images will be remembered for hundreds of years, maybe more. This weekend, I’m proud to be from Washington.

(And the Redskins are in the NFC Championship for the first time in my life. That helps too.)