Trump Will Remake D.C.’s Culture in His Image

The last time Donald Trump won the presidency, there was a lot crowing in Washington’s beau monde about how the new administration would upend the city’s social life. D.C. has never been a particularly friendly town, but in 2016, its residents decided to take a harder stand than usual. The capital’s hostesses linked arms against any top Trump officials seeking invitations to their homes. The region’s restaurateurs, though expected to serve everyone, vowed to make a night on the town for Republicans as unpleasant as possible. And those in chattering classes remarked with much glee that at no point in the city’s recent history had the place been so socially divided.       

The result was that, rather than integrate into Washington life, as staffers and officials from every other presidential administration have, Trump’s coterie was forced to build its own parallel society. Soon, largely undeveloped neighborhoods—Navy Yard and the Wharf prominent among them—became hot spots for young staffers. And no wonder. Those places fit well with Zoomer taste: new construction, rooftop pools, parking everywhere. Meanwhile, more senior officials colonized Kalorama, on the grounds that it was just like Georgetown, but even more insulated from the hateful public eye. 

Eight years later, the situation is pretty much the same. D.C. exists as two parallel societies stuck within the bounds of late 2016. On one side, the greater part of the city is trapped in an Obama-nostalgia doom loop: Le Diplomate still dominates the scene on Fourteenth Street. The establishments of Dupont Circle are still celebrating Obergefell vs. Hodges as if the decision were just handed down last week. And, in Shaw, you can still find the odd “Chicago” bar, a tribute to the 2008 Obama campaigners who have long since left the neighborhood. 

The Trump version of D.C. is no more vital. Those shiny buildings on the river are still obliviously humming along, worlds unto themselves. Mission in Navy Yard is still a hot bar with a certain sort of person, despite, or because of, its vulgarity. Shelly’s Back Room over by the White House has lost none of its luster, in large part because it is one of the only places in the capital that allows the public to smoke inside. The only major change in this world’s social setting from the first Trump presidency is a loss: the Trump International Hotel, which closed down shortly after the president’s inglorious departure in 2021. I can’t say I regret it: Every time I visited in those four years—whether for a gala, dinner, or some other evening event—I was always struck by how hollow, cavernous that main hall was.  

How did the city get stuck in 2016 for so long? Typically, each president makes a mark on Washington’s local culture that survives his tenure, usually in the neighborhoods where his staffers settle. Bill Clinton brought in the crew that made Adams Morgan a hip area. George W. Bush oversaw the revival of Georgetown and Glover Park. And Barack Obama’s team gentrified the historically black neighborhoods around U Street. (Obama himself liked D.C. so much that he still lives here.) Trump, as I have said, built his own fantasy version of the city. 

But something funny happened when Joe Biden took office in 2021. Rather than making his own mark on the city, here, as in so many other things, Biden was like a ghost, and the D.C. continued to function as if he were never here at all.

There are a few possible explanations for the cultural hole. The first is the fact that Biden was elected and took office during a pandemic. He famously campaigned out of his home in Delaware—where he spent much of his presidency anyway—and did not arrive in D.C. with an army of staffers looking for places to live. The second is related to the first: Hardly anyone in the federal government goes into the office anymore, meaning that there is little incentive to form a distinctively Bidenesque after-hours culture. And the third reason is the hazy temporality that surrounds all things Biden. No one was ever going to stick around for him.

Now that Trump is back for round two, everything will change. Once again, the city will renew itself. There is no stopping it now. There is no Resistance to lock the Trump administration out of polite society. For better or worse, Trump will remake Washington, D.C. in his image.

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