To all those lamenting the cancellation of Netflix’s House of Cards, I say good riddance.

I for one will not miss what I have come to view as one of the most anti-American phenomena in modern pop culture. With an upside-down American flag as its logo, and “Democracy is so overrated” as both its Facebook and Twitter themes—with 3 million likes and 2 million Twitter followers—our enemies couldn’t have designed a better way to undermine our democracy through entertainment and social media. There’s a reason that House of Cards is so popular in China and Russia: It paints a dark, dystopian picture of America. Is that what we really need right now?

I realize that I’m unusual. It seems everybody in Washington, D.C., watches House of Cards. But many in Washington came here from elsewhere, don’t stay long, and are proud of being “outsiders” in a town full of transients. I was born and raised here, and have been a lifelong resident of our nation’s capital. My husband and I got married here, live and work here, raised our kids here. We don’t blackmail others, manipulate reporters, have an open marriage, make pacts to destroy colleagues’ careers, profanely insult underlings in business meetings, murder political rivals, create phony cyber attacks by foreign entities, or orchestrate fake terrorist attacks in order to stage coups d’état. And no one else we know in Washington does either.

The problem with House of Cards is it paints everyone in Washington with the same poison brush. I suspected it would bad for our brand from the start, but tuned in for the first season out of curiosity. I turned off the first episode after Frank Underwood killed a dog with his bare hands. After a year of persuading, friends talked me out of my boycott. I gritted my teeth through three more episodes, until Frank Underwood was in bed with a 20-something female reporter—30 years his junior—who was calling her dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day while the congressman was ripping off her clothes. We have two 20-something daughters. I was done.

Here’s how the creators themselves describe House of Cards: “This wicked political drama slithers beneath the curtain and through the back halls of greed, sex, love, and corruption in modern Washington, D.C.” No wonder Chinese censors allowed House of Cards to continue its run for years—it depicts America as corrupt, sleazy, and weak. According to the New York Post, “When Sergey Shoygu became Russia’s minister of defense in 2012, Russian leader Vladimir Putin gave him some interesting advice: If you want to understand America, he said, watch House of Cards.”

In his book All the Kremlin’s Men, author Mikhail Zygar writes that House of Cards affirmed Putin’s belief “that Western politicians are all cynical scoundrels whose words about values and human rights are pure hot air and simply a tool to attack enemies.” So much for being the beacon of democracy and freedom in the world. So much for winning the moral high ground over the twisted ideology of ISIS. Much better for Hollywood to have a wildly popular show that is “critically acclaimed”—seven Emmys and a whopping 53 Emmy nominations so far, but that’s another column for another day—and at the same time glorifies a president whose initials are “F.U.” Again, bad for the brand.

By its own account, Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with more than 70 million members in more than 190 countries watching more than 125 million hours of content a day. Maybe promoting a show that delights in bashing American democracy and trashing public service in front of that big of a global audience is one reason why elected officials consistently rank below used-car salesmen in public trust. It may be only one of many reasons, but House of Cards certainly isn’t helping to encourage good people to go into public service.

At the George H.W. Bush School of Public Service, a quote from President Bush is engraved below his bust. It reads: “Public service is a noble calling, and we need men and women of character to believe that they can make a difference in their communities, in their states, and in their country.” Now that Frank Underwood is gone, maybe we’ll see more men and women of character believing they can make a difference. We need them.

House of Cards, goodbye and good riddance!