Washington, D.C., Is a Disgrace

By Rich Lowry

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

 

At its best, Washington, D.C., is a city of timeless grandeur, of iconic monuments and world-historical centers of power.

 

At its worst, it’s a harrowing place where a remorseless 14-year-old could steal your car.

 

The confluence of these two Washingtons in the terrible early-morning beating of the DOGE employee Edward Coristine, known by his sobriquet, “Big Balls,” has prompted President Trump to federalize the D.C. police and deploy the National Guard. The software engineer played a significant role in the frenetic push to reform the federal government that dominated the national debate at the beginning of Trump’s second term and, by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (and protecting a young woman), was brutally attacked by teenagers within two miles of the White House.

 

The metropolitan government of Washington has never been worthy of the seat of government of the greatest and most powerful nation that has ever existed. It’s consistently been an embarrassment and, for decades now, has tolerated — and, worse, created the conditions for — disorderly and dangerous streets.

 

The late historian Fred Siegel wrote how “social license and economic restrictions,” what he calls “the two halves of sixties liberalism,” drained cities like Washington of their vitality. Over-regulated and inefficient, they were saddled by a “state-supported economy of social workers.”

 

On top of this, in the 1970s, Washington, D.C., experienced “black nationalism in power,” as Siegel put it, particularly in the person of the catastrophic, longtime mayor Marion Barry.

 

The federal government had to put a financial control board in charge in the 1990s to pull the District back from the brink of bankruptcy.

 

Indeed, in the scheme of things, Trump’s intervention is more the norm than the exception in D.C.’s history. In the 19th century, Congress governed the district via committees before giving home rule a try in 1871 and quickly pulling back after the district was — yes — financially mismanaged. D.C. has enjoyed home rule since 1973, although with the financial board exercising significant power from 1995 to 2001.

 

The District is better off than in the bad old days of the 1990s, but it remains beset by a soft-minded progressivism on matters of law and order that is an ongoing threat to public safety.

 

As usual, Trump is opting for the sledgehammer over the scalpel. Still, his indictment of D.C. for allowing lawless young people to blight the city is accurate.

 

The critics object that violent crime is actually falling in Washington. Yes, it is, although from an unacceptably high level. As of 2024, D.C. had the fourth highest homicide rate of major U.S. cities and a higher homicide rate than all 50 states. As Charles Lehman of the Manhattan Institute points out, the city’s homicide rate for young black men has been above the national average for decades now.

 

The killings overwhelmingly involve males who have already been entangled in the criminal justice system, with substantial rap sheets and often prison time. Lehman cites a report by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform that found that about “500 identifiable people” are in this category and account for 60 to 70 percent of all the gun violence in the city.

 

The carjackings, meanwhile, tend to be carried out by minors.

 

Lehman argues that D.C. needs more cops who are more active making stops and arrests, and needs more prosecutions. It also should be targeting the relatively small group of people most prone to violence and the city’s gangs. All of this, coupled with cleaning up homeless encampments, could continue the recent favorable trends and, over time, make the city feel like a better, safer place.

 

It’s probably too much to ask that the government of Washington, D.C., meet the soaring, implicit standard of its most famous buildings, but not having to fear roving bands of young thugs would be a step in the right direction.