MAGA Republicans want Trump to annex Arlington for D.C.

What's happening: For some very-online urbanists, "Recreate the Diamond" has been an irredentist dream (D.C. was originally 100 square miles — almost 50% larger than it is today) and seizing more city (hello, 400,000 new Washingtonians).

• For Republicans, it's a counterattack. It would blow up the congressional map Democrats just redrew 10-1 in their favor.
• That's the thinking advanced by Chad Mizelle, a former Trump DOJ official. Mizelle thinks the president should sign an executive order declaring Virginia's 1847 retrocession unconstitutional, forcing the Supreme Court to decide for the first time whether Arlington and Alexandria (yes, Old Town, too) are rightfully the District's.
• "Residents of this region should feel right at home as part of D.C.," he wrote in a Fox News op-ed, telling Trump to "fight fire with fire."

Would Trump do it? The White House didn't comment.

• Mizelle — an ally of Stephen Miller — tells me it's "worth a shot."

State of play: Taking it further, Republican Georgia congressman Rich McCormick introduced a bill Thursday, under the banner of "Make D.C. Square Again."

• Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer called it a "stupid waste of time."

The intrigue: Politics aside, would being reunited feel so good?

• D.C. would get skyscrapers, rich taxpayers, Clarendon bar fights, double the number of Cheesecake Factories, car dealerships (the lack of which has spawned anti-statehood arguments). Amazing Vietnamese food!
• Plus an airport and strategic control of the Potomac.

The bottom line: Some conservatives call it the "People's Republic of Arlington," but even liberal Virginians might not stand going back to Taxation Without Representation.

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