DEMOLITION DERBY April 25, 2025

My neighborhood is full of home-improvement projects, including my own. What I see says a lot about today’s American government.

Most homeowners and landlords maintain or upgrade their properties. New owners often make major renovations. On my daily walks, I see up to two dozen subcontractors providing electrical and plumbing services, hardwood floors, windows, sheetrock, roofing, scaffolding and painting. Also, deliveries of new appliances.

This represents a much healthier approach to change than that of the present administration.

It’s tempting to say, “Let’s tear the house down and build from scratch.” That wouldn’t make it in San Francisco, although the occasionally condemned property comes down, and a new house or flats arise. 

Beyond expense, practical considerations apply. Homeowners can’t intrude on their neighbors’ lots. Or on their neighbors by building too high or too far back. Permitted changes in height and depth require that neighbors receive plans. Those I’ve reviewed stayed within code, so I’ve never complained.

Bottom line: Homeowners work with budgets and reality. Rather than tear down their house, they improve it. They acknowledge what they don’t have and want, and move forward without adopting a scorched-earth policy. Maybe they can’t add more square feet or another floor, but they understand they can improve their homes markedly. The perfect generally doesn’t get in the way of the good.

Donald Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)—Trump, as president, and not Elon Musk, owns this—takes the opposite approach. Want a more efficient, effective, fraud-free government? Who doesn’t? But Musk and his minions aren’t remodeling—looking for better ways to get things done. They’re spinning their wheels, and ours, in a demolition derby like those in arenas and stadiums where vehicles destroy each other leaving the last one running the winner.

At a conservative political conference in February, Musk paraded proudly with a chainsaw given him by Argentine president Javier Milei. That in mind, homeowners understand tree trimming.

Overgrown street and yard trees block sunlight, can interfere with power lines. Low branches sometimes pose obstacles to pedestrians. Musk’s (and Trump’s) DOGE Tree Trimming Company would take that chainsaw and cut down a tree at the base of its trunk. No taking time to look the tree over, make decisions about which branches to cut off, which to leave. 

Buzz, buzz, buzz—no tree problem. No tree!

To get its house in order, which every homeowner knows is an ongoing project, you make selected, practical, cost-effective improvements. Wanting something better doesn’t mean calling a demolition company to turn your home into rubble. Maybe you work with a designer or an architect, figure out what you want and what will work, then go ahead. It takes time and maybe a little discomfort—especially if you’re still living in the house. But sound planning delivers the house—the home—you want. If it’s not 100 percent, which is hard to achieve in life, it’s a big improvement.

The present destruction of federal agencies, loss of jobs—then rehiring fired personnel because of dumb decisions made by twenty-somethings with no government and little life experience—and loss of critical services hurts American citizens. It also harms the nation as a whole.

Find destruction derby entertaining? See a show featuring junk cars and trucks. Find American destruction an appalling self-inflicted wound? Speak out!

Wednesday night marked the beginning of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. May we learn.

Please pass on this post.

Order my novel, TAKING STOCK (Kirkus Reviews starred selection) — or 2084 —in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com or iuniverse.com. Or from your favorite bookstore.