Of chainsaws and choices: Trump and his hatchet man Elon Musk recklessly remove instead of sensibly reduce
We have a string of trees along the alley in our backyard. They were there when we moved in some 40 years ago. Some are clearly reaching for the sun, while others are probably feeling restricted and squashed. Any trimming has been haphazard and limited. Maybe we sawed off a branch or two every three or four years.
Last year my wife decided we needed to do some serious tree trimming and started looking at chainsaws. I decided I would get her one for her birthday. I loved the idea of replying to our kids and grandkids when they asked, “What did you get her for her birthday?,” and being able to say, “A chainsaw!”
I went shopping and chose the smallest and easiest to handle saw at our local hardware outlet. Imagine my wife’s surprise opening her gift! But the surprise quickly turned to disappointment as the smallest size available at the store was too large and heavy for what she had in mind. She had seen an ad for a size she could manage and this was not the one.
Fortunately, I still had the receipt and it could be returned. My guess is we will end up ordering her size by mail, or returning to the days of using a hand saw.
Which brings me to the scene I saw yesterday of Elon Musk, handling a huge chainsaw at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) gathering. He was waving it in the air like a magician’s wand, smiling, laughing, and ready to cut anything and everything, including a 234-year-old government.
The saw was large enough to fell our ancient constitutional tree. It wasn’t for trimming. And it wasn’t really for trees. It was for people! It would trim jobs! It would trim workers arms and legs, and in some instances, cut off a quick head. One day a livelihood; the next day on the street.
My wife was smart to want a saw small and light enough she could handle, and not do damage to herself or our trees. Elon Musk has no such qualms. The bigger the better, and the quicker it’s accomplished, the less likely there will be backlash.
One can argue that the purpose of reducing the size of government is ethical. Few would dispute that bureaucracy can be frustrating and even defeat its original purpose; to serve the public. Most of us have sat with the phone, waiting to talk to a human being after spending five minutes punching numbers and following recorded directions. It may be another 10 minutes before someone answers.
Or, as some work to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service, it takes more than two weeks for a bill to arrive from Minneapolis, that is almost overdue when you receive it.
Ethically, both purpose and process need to be considered. It can be appropriate to simplify and downsize an agency. But it’s as important morally and ethically to do it in a reasonable way, not with the violence of a chainsaw!
I imagine most people are aware now of someone they know who has lost their job with a simple email notice. They have a matter of hours to empty the desk and turn in the keys. They were with the Forest Service or the National Parks; with USAID or USDA; with Veterans Affairs or the Environmental Protection Agency; with the Department of Energy or the Education Department; with Homeland Security or Health and Human Services. You name it! The chainsaw was at work!
Although the president prefers playing golf to doing the trimming himself, he’s not beyond grabbing the saw, or instructing Secretary Pete Hegseth, his defense chief, to do some dirty work.
It’s interesting that the two high-ranking military officers recently fired are a woman and a Black man.
Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of the Navy and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is gone — fired! As is General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., a black man, gone — fired!
The secretary of defense saw Franchetti as a DEI hire and this administration prefers white men in positions of authority, who they believe have been wrongly treated by DEI policies. No other reasons were given for either firing.
We have a tree in our side yard up close against the house. Two years ago it was beginning to fade. Several branches were refusing to leaf in the spring and I wondered whether it could be salvaged.
A friend looked at it and volunteered to do some trimming. He came one afternoon with his small chainsaw and trimmed the tree. It now has new life and will continue providing shade for our house and nesting for the birds. His was not an exercise in Musk or Trump chainsaw machismo. It was an important task done thoughtfully for a friend.
Would that the processes of this administration felt the same!
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
