DC’s Sole Congressional Rep Is Too Old to Drive. Can She Defend the City From a Hostile GOP?
9th May 2025
Mother Jones, a Voice of Ancient Hippies.
Since she was first elected in 1990 as Washington, DC’s nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has fiercely defended the civil service in Congress. Nearly a quarter of her constituents work for the federal government. So after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, as Elon Musk’s US DOGE Service targeted agency after agency with layoffs, smears, and all manner of corner-cutting, Norton was a logical person to host a March town hall on this unprecedented attack.
The event, promotional materials said, would “give Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton the chance to speak directly with the District of Columbia federal workforce and provide resources.” The promise of a real dialogue with the congresswoman, however, proved to be a bit of hype.
Conducted over the phone, the event had plenty of town, but no hall. As the host, Norton was spectral at best. She read some opening remarks, but when participants directed questions at her, union reps or a democracy activist provided most of the answers. “Congresswoman, I’d be happy to jump in” was a typical intervention during her many unexplained silences.
This illustrates the basic problem that Democrats are facing now. Joe Biden isn’t the only mind-blank politician in the Democrat ranks. The Democrat ‘coalition of the fringes’ is fragmented into handfuls of mutually hostile groups, each of which has a slightly different definition of what constitutes The One True Faith, and as a result, whenever some candidate manages to cobble together a win, they are set forever–not because they represent the views of their various constituents, but because the various proglodyte fragments can’t agree on a replacement. A find illustration of the fact that Leftism is really a religion, in which the trivial differences between The Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea are all-absorbing.