Gleeful cruelty is the despicable scene being played out as Trump and his minions pursue their DOGE initiative. Their purpose claim of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse is undermined by their indiscriminate and illogical actions:

• Providing lifesaving food and medical care to starving children and families around the world is not waste.
• Supporting medical research for cancer treatments, other diseases, and in studying preemptive strategies for evolving potential future epidemics is not fraud.
• Upending the lives of dedicated civil servants and the consequential impacts of restricted or unavailable vital services is not efficient or humane.
• The withdrawal of funding for low-income Medicaid services so that tax breaks are extended for corporations and the wealthy is not efficient or humane.

This depressing list of DOGE’s recent targets could go on, but these attacks simply represent gleefully cruel and evil abuses of executive power informed by a non-elected, super-rich narcissist leading Trump around by the nose. The stagecraft of Elon Musk’s hyperactive dancing with his obscene chainsaw while MAGA loyalists clap and cheer tells us all we need to know about motivation and intent.

In this moment of anxiety and trauma we need, more than ever, to have bipartisan leadership stand up, say no, and assert their constitutional authority. While Maine’s congressional delegation is mostly on board with this, Sen. Collins remains unresponsive. In DOGE world, it is not simply vital agencies and personnel that are being fed into the “woodchipper,” it’s the treasured soul of our democracy. Gleefully but forcefully resist.

Neal Guyer
Thomaston