Why does the rest of the country hate DC?

[Anonymous]

I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

[Anonymous]

Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

[Anonymous]

Washington has its dysfunction. But is also convenient scapegoat for frustrated people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

Um, that's not DC any more than calling Obama a family of chimpanzees is Republican.

[Anonymous]

DC has a bad reputation with the rest of the country, because of the behavior of the people the rest of the country sends to DC.

[Anonymous]

Republicans have been vilifying the government and federal workers for years. I grew up in a communist regime and there was a saying about the propaganda machine: if you lie 100 times, it becomes truth.

Some of the rhetorics is true. I was in government consulting for a couple of years and saw a lot of incompetence and political infighting in our projects, resulting in huge waste of tax payers's money. I was shocked. However it is only one side of the story. Now I work in health insurance industry, it is worse wasting premiums paid by the members. Talking about cancer of the society. Now I am totally for single payer system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

I would never call everyone back home uneducated, ignorant, or racist. Frankly a lot of people in school were rude about my Midwestern roots but I know tone of Midwesterners in DC and there's not much of an anti-Midwestern bias in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

Im confused. Where in OPs post did they say any of this? You are projecting your anger at idiots everywhere on innocent people like OP just because of where they live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

Um, that's not DC any more than calling Obama a family of chimpanzees is Republican.

Sorry to inform you, but it is DC. Simply look at hundreds of posts on this forum about how people in "flyover" country are treated. Here are a couple of quotes:

"In flyover country perhaps, but not in tier 1 cities."

About women: "The 7's and 8's who are nurses or work in other service industry or low level bs hr or marketing jobs from flyover country might not be able to hold a conversation with me regarding optimal central bank policy or the implications of shinzo abe's party looking to re-write parts of the japanese constitution but they are content and have a pleasant attitude."

About intellect: "Ugh, so my husband has developed a recent (and poorly informed) series of opinions about monetary policy that he is for some reason feeling compelled to share with the entire world. We'll be at a barbecue with friends and he'll just start yammering on about the evils of the Federal Reserve, how the US dollar isn't actually "worth anything," etc... The problem is that I, as well as most of our friends, are attorneys, civil servants, lobbyists, or other working professionals who know better. He's spouting some serious flyover-state BS -- I don't even know where he gets it. The other night, I caught his best friend's wife rolling her eyes at another acquaintance when DH started talking. I suspect that they have a lot of laughs at his (our?) expense."

About beaches (of all things): "Not to get off topic, but lakes don't have beaches. Not real ones, anyway. I know you folks in flyover country vehemently disagree, but sorry - on this, East and West Coast natives can find common ground. No beaches on lakes."

About rearing children: "why would you want your son to grow up in flyover country? Every friend I have, whose parents moved from alpha-metro's to sleepy towns in their elementary school years has held it against their parents."

And that is just a brief look. Simply do a search on DCUM in almost any forum for "flyover" and you will find hundreds of awful comments. So why should the people in the middle like coasties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

You are making a lot of ASSumptions about OP. And it sure sounds like you've heard a lot of lies at least a hundred times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

Um, that's not DC any more than calling Obama a family of chimpanzees is Republican.

But there are many, many DCUM posts that include the comments PP listed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

Jealous much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

I work about 50 hours a week and have a salary about 40% of my peers from law school, benefits are better than the average American but not as good as my peers in the private sector.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling everyone in the middle an uneducated, imbecilic, racist rube from flyover country.

Calling them uncultured and ignorant.

Watching government grow exponentially without tangible benefit in the "middle".

Being told how and what to think.

Being condescended to because you chose to move to Detroit with your Harvard MBA rather than going to NYC or DC or some place "with culture".

How's that for a start?

Um, that's not DC any more than calling Obama a family of chimpanzees is Republican.

Sorry to inform you, but it is DC. Simply look at hundreds of posts on this forum about how people in "flyover" country are treated. Here are a couple of quotes:

"In flyover country perhaps, but not in tier 1 cities."

About women: "The 7's and 8's who are nurses or work in other service industry or low level bs hr or marketing jobs from flyover country might not be able to hold a conversation with me regarding optimal central bank policy or the implications of shinzo abe's party looking to re-write parts of the japanese constitution but they are content and have a pleasant attitude."

About intellect: "Ugh, so my husband has developed a recent (and poorly informed) series of opinions about monetary policy that he is for some reason feeling compelled to share with the entire world. We'll be at a barbecue with friends and he'll just start yammering on about the evils of the Federal Reserve, how the US dollar isn't actually "worth anything," etc... The problem is that I, as well as most of our friends, are attorneys, civil servants, lobbyists, or other working professionals who know better. He's spouting some serious flyover-state BS -- I don't even know where he gets it. The other night, I caught his best friend's wife rolling her eyes at another acquaintance when DH started talking. I suspect that they have a lot of laughs at his (our?) expense."

About beaches (of all things): "Not to get off topic, but lakes don't have beaches. Not real ones, anyway. I know you folks in flyover country vehemently disagree, but sorry - on this, East and West Coast natives can find common ground. No beaches on lakes."

About rearing children: "why would you want your son to grow up in flyover country? Every friend I have, whose parents moved from alpha-metro's to sleepy towns in their elementary school years has held it against their parents."

And that is just a brief look. Simply do a search on DCUM in almost any forum for "flyover" and you will find hundreds of awful comments. So why should the people in the middle like coasties?

Perhaps this argument would have worked five or six years ago, but there are truckloads of posters on DCUM now with no connection to DC at all.