DC is of course not a state, let alone a country, but Federalist assistant editor Kylee Zempel recently wrote a piece explaining why the “third world country of Washington DC” does not deserve statehood.
“To repurpose a poetic line from former president and wordsmith Donald Trump, the District of Columbia is a ‘sh-thole country,’ ” Zempel wrote in the conservative web magazine. Though there have been several interesting arguments against granting statehood to the District, Zempel offers yet another: “It’s that Washington, D.C., despite its stately marble halls and rich history, is a Third World country. That’s right: America would be better off giving statehood to Somalia.”
This story brought up some of Zempel’s old Instagram posts, which began circulating on Twitter over the weekend. “I live here. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that…” she captioned a 2018 photo of the Washington Monument. The screenshots include comments mocking what she wrote in The Federalist, and her Instagram is now private.
She certainly seems over it now. In her Federalist piece, Zempel describes appalling conditions in the “Wild Wild West of Washington,” citing messy Starbucks bathrooms and homeless encampments.
Zempel has publicly contradicted herself before, but in song. Her personal blog—with the subtitle “Sometimes I’m wrong; other times I write”—features a song she wrote called “This is Empowerment to Me.” The song, which has roughly 131,000 views, is a parody of the viral Lynzy Lab song “A Scary Time,” viewed more than 1.5 million times.https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1388563449098158083?s=20
Lyrics to the song include, “Got a uterus inside me, don’t need one on my head,” a reference to the pink pussy hats made popular at the Women’s March in January 2017. Another lyric says, “The future is human. It isn’t female,” which makes fun of the popular feminist slogan, “the future is female.”
In the song, Zempel also sings, “If I need some inspiration, I just look in the mirror.” She then pauses to say, “Thanks, Leslie Knope.” Knope is Amy Poehler’s character on Parks and Recreation, who is not only a feminist, but has a framed photo of Hillary Clinton in her office and is starstruck upon meeting then-Vice President Joe Biden.
It begs the question: When did Zempel stop viewing D.C. as a “beautywood” and cure her self-diagnosed “Potomac Fever?” We reached out, but Zempel did not respond to a request for comment.
