During President Donald Trump’s first four years in the White House, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser had no qualms about voicing her and her constituents’ disapproval of him. As the overwhelmingly Democratic city’s most prominent representative, Bowser’s most notable act of resistance was the establishment of Black Lives Matter Plaza in the wake of 2020’s George Floyd protests. The creation of the plaza, a stretch of 16th Street that bore the words “Black Lives Matter” in massive yellow letters, directly followed one of Trump’s most openly anti-protest actions.
In order to walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a gratuitous photo op, Trump had law enforcement officers disperse a crowd of peaceful protestors using tear gas and rubber bullets. In the aftermath, Bowser criticized his actions as “shameful” and requested that the governors of Ohio and New Jersey withdraw their National Guard troops from the capital. Four days after the photo op, the plaza was commissioned, and it was finally completed in October of the next year.
Perhaps in retaliation to Bowser’s defiance and criticism, Trump blamed the mayor on multiple occasions for allegedly failing to contain the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol. Although the event was a deliberate attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump’s favor, he chose to scapegoat Democrats like Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Bowser, in another act of open defiance, took to social media to debunk his disinformation campaign and explain that she immediately mobilized the Metropolitan Police Department to contain the uprising.
Now, in Trump’s second term, Bowser seems to recognize that she is on thin ice with a very, very sensitive man. Her open defiance and criticism are virtually nowhere to be found. This is likely due to the sardonically—and very creatively—named BOWSER (Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident) Act, a Senate bill that would eliminate home rule. If this bill were to become law, the mayor would be out of work.
With this prospect looming over her, Bowser acquiesced to the Black Lives Matter plaza being painted over to make way for a renamed “Freedom Plaza.” In her own words, there are “bigger fish to fry” at the moment, and chief among them is “making sure our residents and our economy survives.” And it’s true that both the District’s population and economy, as a direct consequence of the President’s actions, are at risk. For example, his unilateral pardon of the domestic terrorists involved in the January 6 insurrection loosed swarms of violent offenders onto the city’s streets. The Trump administration’s ample spending cuts and downsizing on Capitol Hill have also already adversely affected the city’s economy.
While there may only be so much Mayor Bowser can do with her job—and DC’s rights—on the line, the fact remains that the city requires a defender. Federal overreach is uniquely destructive in a city with so little representation and so little agency. If no one fights for the District, it’s possible that there will be no District to fight for.
Featured image/photo by Kind and Curious on Unsplash.