The uncomfortable reality I've had to face is that a lot of these people really, genuinely, enjoy other people suffering.

I think it comes from a place of the American vision of work. This idea that things that are good don't come easy, and that it requires sacrifice. That if some people aren't getting hurt, then it's not working.

So they view these people getting hurt as a good thing. They use terms like "bleed" to describe the executive agencies getting gutted. They have a medieval view of it, like blood letting is a legitimate solution to problems. That, because there are tears and suffering, something of substance must be getting accomplished.

But sometimes bad things are just bad. And sometimes good things don't require suffering. They don't understand that.