WASHINGTON, DC —Spring is in the air and cherry blossom trees sprinkle cherry blossoms all around the city’s Tidal Basin Pool. As the season warms and welcomes thousands of sight seers to the nation’s capital, the nation’s leadership is shifting into high gear.
With both Houses on Capitol Hill in political discord, the White House unable to precisely identify the nation’s top political leaders, departments of government laying off employees by the thousands—from military veterans to clean water workers to educators – and shutting down agencies on contradictory orders from the President, many people are wondering what is ahead.
“You’ll see an awesome display of award-winning cherry blossom trees lacing the Capitol Mall when you visit D.C. this spring,” said Frank Smith, founder and executive director of the African American Civil War Museum and Memorial, a few blocks from the Mall. “Don’t ever forget to smell the roses,” said Smith, who is overseeing a $5 million re-building of the museum at its same location on Vermont Avenue in N.W.
For sure, tourism here is anticipating an unexpected slump due to the fragile political climate here in the city, said Smith, noting the Civil War Museum is not federally supported and will not close due to the federal disruption.
The city almost lost Congressional approval of its budget for 2025 when President Trump used his bully pulpit declarations and pushed the House to refuse approval of the city’s annual budget. The budget is based on the city’s locally collected tax revenue. Mr. Trump and his staff were unaware local tax receipts were in the city’s budget as a line item until the process was explained to him and the staff. A veteran legislator and former state governor, Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins-R. Maine, who has run between both parties as a problem solver, gave the House members a teachable moment to sort out the budget voting questions thrown by Mr. Trump.
Art showings, performances of artistic programs and events at the Kennedy Center, at the opposite end of the National Mall, are being postponed or dropped as the arts community shares it anger with Mr. Trump. The arts community is speaking out in opposition to Mr. Trump’s removal of the Kennedy Center board of directors, which he claims is a platform for political liberals, and declared himself Chairman of the Kennedy Center, and appointing his wife as a member of the board, is something no President has done in the 50-year history of the Center.
The performance at the Kennedy Center of the acclaimed Broadway show known as “Hamilton” has been cancelled for now, among other events.
There are other sweeping changes happening in the city, seemingly directed against nonwhites. It could be said Mr. Trump and his crew are trying to erase black history from the nation’s past.
In the heart of downtown, the BLACK LIVES MATTER mural creatively painted on the steps of City Hall Plaza in memory of Minnesotan George Floyd, a Black man who died in May 2020 at the hands of a St. Paul police officer who had pulled Floyd over on a routine traffic stop and held him down until he stopped breathing. Public reaction to what police decided was an unnecessary murder was widespread. The artwork has been removed.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, re-elected last fall to a second term in office, has repeatedly declined to bite the political bait offered by President Trump. The President has said the city needs a serious clean up. He wants the city to move homeless people out of campsites around the White House and wants police to cut down on violent crimes in the city.
Mr. Trump has said publicly, he “would do it for her,” if she (Mayor Bowser) is not able to deliver, in referring to the city’s top official. In a series of talks with reporters, as the Congressional debate moved toward the final votes on Capitol Hill inched to deadline by the end of March, Mayor Bowser said Mr. Trump had apparently been referring to outdated covid disease era reports about crime and lawlessness, since the state of the city has improved significantly. “We’ve got more fish to fry,’’ she said referring to the pending city budget crisis.
