Oh I get it, it's a bit like how it's super annoying that America is used to refer to the US and American is commonly used to mean Estadounidense. Yea that's frustrating.

People from the US who didn’t know Washington state existed, or elsewhere? It only actually matters if Washington state suddenly goes off the rails, which would be weird. We say “Ottawa” in Canada to refer to the federal government and we all understand what that means because of very obvious context clues.

In general I don’t disagree that being more accurate is a good thing, and “DC” is easier to write, too, but if people need the clarity here then they’re dumb as hell.