Editorial: Protecting D.C., Bowser Style
By • March 11, 2025 0 182
“We have bigger fish to fry,” Mayor Muriel Bowser told the press last week about her intent to dismantle Black Lives Matter Plaza and her quick response to administration officials calling for the removal of homeless encampments. She said the one near the State Department was already on her list.
Yes, the mayor is picking her battles.
With a “full view of the field in front of us,” Bowser said, she knows Home Rule is under threat from the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House.
Last month, President Donald Trump made the following remarks to reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from Miami: “I think that we should govern the District of Columbia. It’s so important, the D.C. situation. I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless. And I think we should take over Washington, D.C.
“I get along great with the mayor, but they’re not doing the job — too much crime, too much graffiti, too many tents on the lawns,” he continued. “There’s magnificent lawns and there’s tents. It’s a sad thing, homeless people all over the place.”
Happily, so far, no executive order has arrived to limit Home Rule.
Taking a different tack from the protests of 2020, Bowser is quietly responding. Last week, she removed any online references to D.C. being a sanctuary city.
The “bigger fish” she worries about are the mass layoffs of federal workers, of which the Washington area has over 300,000. This formerly stable workforce insulated D.C. from most economic problems. But no longer, it seems.
The BLM mural “helped our city through a very painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference,” Bowser said. “The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number-one concern. Our focus is on economic growth, public safety and supporting our residents affected by these cuts.
“So, while I recognize that there is frustration and that people want someone to blame or they want somebody to be mad at, I don’t think that’s where we are in D.C.,” she said. “I think we’re in the place where we’re locking arms. They want us to be smart and strategic and get to the other side, and that’s my job. I’m going to navigate us to the other side.”
Bowser’s stoic, strategic attitude aims to deflect any takeover of local government and to help D.C. weather the capriciousness of our bully president. It’s working for now — and she is to be commended. Let’s hope her captaining leads us to a safe harbor.
