Political Passing in Washington, DC

Posted on December 2, 2025 By Rachel MacNair

by Rosalyn Mitchell

What does it mean to pass politically in Washington, DC? To walk through the historical suburbs and think, “Wow, the lights hit in a certain way, the fall leaves against the colonial red brick. How serene.” To me, it felt surreal. Is this America, detached from the strain of data, the crisis on our TVs, phones, apps, the longest government shutdown in United States history?

To hold a consistent life ethic is to master the art of political passing, defying the left-right spectrum. I can speak the language of conservatism to a Christian pro-lifer. I can speak the language of socialism to an anti-war activist. I become a translator between left and right ideologues; everybody thinks I agree with them, even when I don’t. To the liberal, I become a liberal; to the conservative, I become a conservative. The stories of the people I know and the experiences I have witnessed would not be believable to people who are not able to politically pass.

Dena Espenscheid from the Leadership Institute said,

Your intuition is shaped by your education and your experiences.

The Leadership Institute, associated with Project 2025, hosted the Rehumanize Conference. Abe Bonowitz, from Death Penalty Action, lifted the veil. He directly addressed Project 2025. He noticed the vague language on the death penalty. What if the authors are politically passing? Do they hold a skepticism of the death penalty? Project 2025 advised leaving the death penalty to legislative bodies. What else are the authors politically passing on? Do they dissent privately on other issues? The price of political passing is to suppress at least some of one’s true beliefs.

I felt an echo chamber, the unspoken assumption that everyone in the pro-life movement is politically and religiously conservative. Amongst pro-lifers, the community forms a bubble of uniformity.

Similarly, organizing in anti-war communities is to pass in a bubble dominated by liberal and progressive orthodoxy. Everyone assumes everyone else must think and act like them, too. If someone like me opposes abortion and war on the principle of non-violence, one feels the weight of political passing as moving between two orbits.

I think about Christina Bennett’s presentation as a black pro-life woman at the Rehumanize conference. She shared her experience working for Live Action, a coloured voice amongst a dominant white narrative. She herself is conservative and sees this racial gap. Christina knows what it would take to be popular. To say the right things, to be a token. I think the irony is that conservatism values community, which should mean not selling out, not intentionally race-baiting for your own success.

If I wanted to pass in a progressive way, I could say that all pro-life people are bigoted, Trump-supporting racists who hate women. I could easily pass with the same success that earns people the nickname Uncle Tom for being the token black voice in a white conservative narrative. I know that taking positions on life issues is not the same as being born with a certain skin colour. I understand that I am not physically passing.

I am politically passing.

I walked from the Rosslyn, in the suburbs of Arlington, my hotel named after me, to the DC Metro: the harsh mechanical glare, steep elevators, and brutalist bricks screamed modernity. I swear, in a town that decries communism, I felt the bureaucratic weight of the Soviet Union. I visited the Pentagon, specifically the metro station: the war machine beneath my feet churning underground. I spoke at the White House across from Lafayette Square for peace and life for nonviolence against abortion and nuclear weapons, all while passing minutes earlier as an anonymous person riding the DC Metro.

Washington DC Metro

I turned surveillance upon the surveyors, watching Big Brother watching me, as I walked the streets of Washington, DC. Nobody watched me except for the cameras (thank you, Palantir). I observed a well-dressed woman with her child. I passed the academies where the elites, the politicians and diplomats, educate their children behind ivy bricks. The Historic Episcopal Saint Alban’s and the Catholic Cathedral. I thought about the cameras watching me. How I watched them passing through the streets of DC. How does one pass in a crisis? When you can walk in tranquility, suspending your disbelief.

One Pristine Walk through DC

Passing through the pristine neighbourhood of Washington, DC, the NO Kings posters reminded me of the fragility of the bubble of elite control. To feel virtuous while enabling the problem, to fear reality. They do not have to live with the consequences safe from the war. The politicians feel like they’re doing something, political passing in Washington, DC.

I saw a poster of the face of Martin Luther King Jr., advertising a documentary on Civil Rights, playing at the Ford’s Theatre. Honouring American history in the US capital is not unusual. What was unusual was the war machine honouring a man murdered for peace. This is what I observed in Washington, DC, while politically passing through picturesque spaces and faces. Walking down a pristine street, observing the serene knowing that internally, the culture is burning.