Review Reviews: The Swamp

Editor’s Note: Associate Editor James D. Eiler is a constituent member of that most esteemed group of Hanoverians, the “townies.” An alumnus of Hanover High School and a student at the College, Mr. Eiler lends to this paper, and thus its readership, the benefit of local insight. His is, indeed, a unique outlook on the affairs of the College as it relates to Hanover and New Hampshire more broadly; but herein Mr. Eiler departs from his normal compositional trajectory. He offers a Granite Stater’s take on the nexus of all things governmental and pre-professional, Washington, D.C., following his completion of an eight-week internship in that fair(?) city.

Hanover, to many natives, is a bustling Metropolis, a mecca of urban sprawl that stands at the forefront of the modern age. Yet even Hanover does not offer limitless opportunities. Local readers may not be aware, but there is a world beyond Hanover. Seeking to build his resume and expand his horizons, this writer journeyed to the lofty skyscrapers and intern-infested sewers of Washington, D.C. 

First, a bit of background on the District of Columbia. Early in this nation’s history, our exalted founders, blessed be their names, had a bit of a fetish for ancient Rome. Thus, in addition to emulating their system of government and general aesthetic, they decided to put the capital in a mosquito-infested swamp. It is in this hellish environment that D.C. has persisted throughout the centuries. With the exception of a small hiccup in the War of 1812 when the godless British “people” burned down the White House, the city has continuously expanded. Much of this expansion mirrors the ceaseless metastasization of the federal bureaucracy, as every new department needs a new imitation neoclassical office building. More on this bureaucracy later. 

My first day in D.C. was full of surprises. Ronald Reagan International Airport is actually pretty good in a bland, inoffensive sort of way. The Willard Hotel, though, is incredibly overrated and just not worth it. Most of all, the dorms on the George Washington University Campus are orders of magnitude better than Dartmouth dorms. Seriously, they are twice as big, and every single room has a kitchen, a bathroom, and—get this—air conditioning. The fact that we, at Dartmouth, have four times as much money and infinitely more land on which to build, and yet we still live in Hoovervilles built to be riot-proof during the Vietnam War, is nothing if not a tragedy. It is, perhaps, the single greatest indictment of Dartmouth’s administration since some boomer picked Doechii for Green Key. I will remember the eight weeks I spent in my George Washington dorm with a mixture of fondness and resentment. The resentment will occur every time I wake up in my Dartmouth room in the middle of May, drenched in my own sweat and fuming with incandescent rage because the latte-drinkers in the housing department decided that, instead of installing air conditioning, they would simply tell us all to open a damn window.

During my first few days in D.C., I walked around the city with my father, who spent much of the time warning me of all the ways this labyrinthine hellhole could kill us. To be honest, after living for ten years in the land of bears and meth trailers, the homeless people living in tents didn’t really scare me. Overall, though, my first impression of the city was good. It has better or at least more diverse food, which is a plus. Maybe it’s just me, but Hanover’s five restaurants get a bit old after a while. The city wasn’t too crowded, and even the heat was bearable. The monuments are truly impressive, and even the office buildings are aesthetic (if you can ignore the fact that they are infested with the most boring kind of snakes outside of Wharton).

To be honest, after living for ten years in the land of bears and meth trailers, the homeless people living in tents didn’t really scare me. Overall, though, my first impression of the city was good. It has better or at least more diverse food, which is a plus. Maybe it’s just me, but Hanover’s five restaurants get a bit old after a while.

But over time, all that marble began to lose its luster as I spent more time in the city. For one thing, the museums really do start to get old. There are only so many times you can go to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History before you want to take the Hope Diamond and break it over the head of the caveman in the Charles Koch Hall of Human Origins. While I’m sure my internship will be useful when I make the inevitable decision to sell my soul to Wall Street, it became rather monotonous when I realized that my boss would not give me the editorial freedom to insult every single nation, profession, and person of importance for the sake of a half-decent one liner. Actually having to write well-thought-out and serious pieces gave me flashbacks to Writing 5 at Dartmouth. I did not need these flashbacks over my summer break. The weather, too, took a turn for the worse as June melted into July. God might have been punishing me for laughing at the southerners at Dartmouth who walk around in October wearing down jackets because they have never experienced temperatures below forty degrees. I didn’t even have to cross the Mason-Dixon line for the air to grow so hot and humid that my pale skin began to boil. Truly, I beg forgiveness for my hubris.

Worse than the heat and the crowds of tourists waiting to see a big rock were, I would say, the people I saw literally walking in D.C.’s halls of power. Nowhere in the country will you see a greater hive of premature baldness and self-aggrandizement. For the first time ever, someone walked up to me and asked for my Linkedin. At first I thought the guy was just some unfortunate Jordan Belfort impersonator, but then someone else did it too. Pretty soon every dinner and reception seemed like a Psi U alumni gathering. The congressmen were no different. Most were simply boring. With charismas of wooden posts, they drawled on and on, repeating the talking points of either Sean Hannity or Rachael Maddow. It was almost as if interns wrote all their speeches and those interns were lazy and just shared a Google Doc.

Having now returned from the sycophancy of Washington to the homeliness of Hanover, I have been presented with this opportunity to reflect on my experience. Overall, I’m amazed the country hasn’t already fallen apart with such people leading it as those I witnessed. If I were to sum up my experience in D.C. in one sentence, it is this: Just as the Bible has created more atheists than any other book, D.C. has created more libertarians than any other city.