Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) on Tuesday criticized a recently-introduced GOP bill that would rename Washington Dulles International Airport after former President Trump.
“Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges,” Connolly, whose district includes a portion of Dulles, said in a statement. “If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) introduced the bill Friday proposing to change the name of Dulles to “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” In a news release on the bill, he said the U.S. “has never been greater than under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump.”
As a Virginian, it’s wildly different out in the sticks vs in an urban area. Northern Virginia is incredible, Richmond is pretty liberal, so it Charlottesville, and the tidewater area is as well(though slightly less). It’s when you get in to bumfuck VA like Paige county it gets real stupid real fast.
To be fair, even the most progressive state like California (and I imagine most other states) is exactly the same. You don’t have to drive far outside of Los Angeles to start seeing Trump signs.
They’re pretty few and far between in the Northeast. Not to say they don’t exist, but they’re far from common.
I live in western Virginia. I don’t know much about northern Virginia, but I’ve met several people from northern Virginia. Wanna know how I know? Because every third sentence they speak contains the words “in northern Virginia”.
I know it’s not exactly relevant haha, but I get a kick out of that.
This one old dude comes and chats with me early in the morning. We can be talking about anything and he finds a way to throw it in there. “Try that new coke yet?” “I tried Vanilla Coke in northern Virginia.” “Man, it’s gonna be a rainy day isn’t it?” “In northern Virginia it rained so hard one time…” “what are you getting into today?” “Well, once upon a time in northern Virginia I… oh, did I tell you that’s where I’m from? Northern Virginia.”
I’m in Trump country. It makes my brain bleed talking to people sometimes. I felt my eyes melting out yesterday talking to a preacher about the state of the country. The folks around here talk about seceding and joining WV. They love that guy. He’s a man of the people, you know, the dude with the golden toilet and pictures of himself on every wall. Man of the people… gah.
I grew up in NOVA. And while I agree with your assessment, you can’t in good faith sell someone on those benefits without also mentioning the miserable, never-ending traffic nightmare that exists 24 hours a day anywhere near the beltway. I’ve lived in Manhattan, Chicago in three different neighborhoods and of course the DC metro area. I just spent a week in Fairfax, and it is the worst traffic I’ve ever seen outside of Atlanta at rush hour. And in VA, it’s ALL THE TIME.
They are in denial about it too when I moved to Baltimore and found out other regions don’t have 24/7 parking lots instead of roads, and then mentioned this fact on a forum full of Northern Virginians. Everybody started bringing up 495 around Bethesda, but like, yeah, that’s technically still the DC metro region even though its MD, not VA. The further you get from DC, the more normal traffic becomes.
I fucking dread it when I have a jobsite in VA, because then I always have to add an hour and a half to a trip that should take 45 minutes.
I think in 20 years we are going to see some detrimental effects on the local economy of that place if nobody can get anywhere anymore in a reasonable amount of time in a place where public transportation is absolutely shit. The Metro needs to extend down to Fredericksburg and out west all the way to Manassas, but that’ll never happen. Some people deal with up to 3 hour commutes, that’s fucking bananas.
When I was in HS, back in the early 90s, my friend’s father worked for a 3 letter office, near the Fed Triangle. He got up at 4:30 am every morning to make it to the office by 6 to avoid the worst traffic. That was 30 years ago!
Good news! They are extending the HOV lanes to Fredericksburg instead! So they can funnel more traffic into the beltway faster!
I havent had to do a commute since covid, but I do drive around a decent amount. Maybe I’m getting lucky but at least for me, since covid, it’s been better that pre-covid. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it sucks but it’s not like it was before. .