{"id":3429,"date":"2025-11-02T17:43:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/02\/moco-executive-marc-elrich-visits-china-to-learn-how-to-build-great-wall-around-bethesda\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T17:51:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:51:40","slug":"moco-executive-marc-elrich-visits-china-to-learn-how-to-build-great-wall-around-bethesda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/02\/moco-executive-marc-elrich-visits-china-to-learn-how-to-build-great-wall-around-bethesda\/","title":{"rendered":"MoCo Executive Marc Elrich Visits China to Learn How to Build Great Wall Around Bethesda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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BEIJING, CHINA – County Executive Marc Elrich announced he is in China this week, specifically to study the Great Wall so he can build a full-scale replica around Bethesda, protecting the rest of Montgomery County from the fast-growing, economic center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst it was downtown Bethesda,\u201d said Elrich, speaking from the Great Wall National Park outside of Beijing. \u201cThen\u2026North Bethesda. If we don’t learn from the Ming Dynasty and their approach to protecting themselves from the raids of the 16th century Mongols, Takoma Park might wake up one day with its own Pike and Rose. And that\u2019s when society collapses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elrich, currently on what county officials insist is a research mission and not a taxpayer-funded dim sum tour, was photographed shaking hands with Chinese officials while standing next to a 3D rendering of an enormous stone barrier encircling downtown Bethesda, stretching from NIH to the Container Store. Officials say the purpose of the wall will be to protect the county\u2019s most vulnerable communities from the unchecked spread of capitalism, mixed-use development, and $19 lattes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople keep telling me I need to keep up with Virginia in terms of economic development,\u201d Elrich told reporters. \u201cWell, here it is – China will upskill the 2 million workers needed to build this wall and it will only cost $1 trillion. I challenge my opponents to explain why this isn’t the ideal investment in our County’s future!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elrich ended his trip with a ceremonial exchange of parking enforcement robots with the Chinese officials and announcing plans for two other mega infrastructure projects inspired by his visit, including a \u201cSilk Trail\u201d driving tour route of the County’s best surface lots and a \u201cForbidden Zone\u201d zoning overlay to protect Takoma Park from dangerous 5G cell phone tower waves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING, CHINA – County Executive Marc Elrich announced he is in China this week, specifically to study the Great Wall so he can build a full-scale replica around Bethesda, protecting the rest of Montgomery County from the fast-growing, economic center. \u201cFirst it was downtown Bethesda,\u201d said Elrich, speaking from the Great Wall National Park outside…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114,847,1833,1827,1830,1828,724,1808,183,2128,516,95,24,970,1130,373,319,2127,370,489,806,807,371,368,979,2126,1224,340,141,1387,537,317,1160,1848,189,309,705,710,943,405,638,130,1755,1733,339,6,116,935,94,542,137,93,136,2,1771,719,718,104,1218,1840,38,387,615,313,406,369],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-amazon","tag-andrew-friedson","tag-best-of-bethesda","tag-bethesda-beat","tag-bethesda-news","tag-bethesda-today","tag-bethesdafication","tag-bluesky","tag-chevy-chase","tag-china","tag-cnn","tag-comedy","tag-dc-satire","tag-dmv-news","tag-dmv-satire","tag-ebay","tag-elrich","tag-elrich-in-china","tag-facebook","tag-funny","tag-gaithersburg","tag-germantown","tag-gmail","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-great-wall","tag-housing-shortage","tag-hulu","tag-humor","tag-instagram","tag-local-news","tag-marc-elrich","tag-marcel-rich","tag-marcmansion","tag-maryland","tag-moco","tag-moco-council","tag-moco-executive","tag-moco-planning","tag-moco-politics","tag-moco-satire","tag-montgomery-county","tag-montgomery-county-news","tag-montgomery-county-satire","tag-netflix","tag-news","tag-nimby","tag-north-bethesda","tag-parody","tag-reddit","tag-rockville","tag-satire","tag-silver-spring","tag-takoma-park","tag-takoma-park-humor","tag-takoma-park-news","tag-takoma-park-satire","tag-takoma-torch","tag-thrive-montgomery","tag-tiktok","tag-twitter","tag-urbanism","tag-washington-dc","tag-wheaton","tag-will-jawando","tag-youtube","wpcat-9-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/signal-2025-10-29-23-15-50-7635303756891277282309.jpg?fit=1248%2C832&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-Tj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3432,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions\/3432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}