"D.C.’s government is not very good at doing many of the things governments are supposed to do, whether it’s law enforcement or maintaining basic infrastructure. You may be forgiven if you think they are simply not trying when you see things like their resistance to punishing misbehavior on public transit or the mass down-scheduling of crimes like, well, carjacking. In fact, the only conclusion a reasonable person could draw is that the members of the D.C. City Council actively and passionately hate their constituents, the poorest of whom bear the brunt of the city’s descent into bare savagery.

Yet the city is rather good at other things—tax collection comes to mind. (The efficient vigor of D.C.’s tax apparatus in fact, paradoxically, threatens its revenues this year.) Or rolling out licensing for cannabis stores. Or building new speed cameras for revenue. Generally speaking, cultivating problems for law-abiding citizens in the name of revenue generation seems to be a great strength of the city government. (The failed sportsbook is the exception.)
....
It bears emphasizing that this is not happening in some afterthought city in a hinterland; this is the capital of the United States, the seat of political power in what was once called unironically the free world. Congressmen are being carjacked.

Decline isn’t always a choice, but when it happens unprompted in the capital of the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth, it is laughable to say that it has to be this way. The decay of the American polity comes most often at the hands of politicians who are set on cultivating privilege without power or its responsibilities. As the state declines, so do impartial justice and equality before the law; as these decline, so does civil society, which further saps the state.

It is hard to rise, but easy to fall. If Washington continues down this path, you don’t need to look to Brazil or to South Africa for a vision of the future. Just drive up to Baltimore."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-sanctioned-chaos-at-the-imperial-capital/