Social platforms and mainstream media outlets resound with alarmist declarations that billionaire Elon Musk has gained access to sensitive IRS records and Social Security numbers. But federal employees have long had access to Americans’ data. Haughty histrionics by startled Dems about the DOGE “oligarchy” ignore the pernicious influence of Bill Gates and George Sorors exposed at USAID, displaying a concern not that Americans’ personal data is at risk, but that their own hands in America’s cookie jar may get chopped.

The phrase “crocodile tears” dates back to a British work (Mandeville’s Travels) from the late 14th Century, which observed of a foreign land: “In that country – there are many crocodiles – These serpents slay men, and then, weeping, eat them.” Later, writer Edward Topsell referred to a crocodile feigning distress to lure prey into a false sense of security in order to devour them: “…but such is the nature of the crocodile that, to get a man within his danger, he will sob, sigh, and weep as though he were in extremity, but suddenly he destroyeth him.” Shakespeare’s Othello turned the phrase when questioning his wife’s fidelity: “If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.”

Democrats howling in faux fear over Musk’s inspection of federal accounting records resemble such crocodilian tear-droppers. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) sought to rally ire with words so ironic that Musk tweeted a video of her watery-eyed warning, “We don’t know what they have on us.” Vermont’s feisty Becca Balint, a Democrat in the US House, grandstanded in front of the US Treasury, delivering a saltier version:

“Every movement is a scrappy little dyke, and I am that person….

“You have to post what you’re seeing. You have to record the truth and get the truth out. I know. I know how tired you are. I know it. But you are not just doing it for you.

“You’re doing it for your neighbors who don’t have a pot to piss in. You’re doing it for the folks who don’t know if their kids are going to get fed tomorrow.

“This is not just about us. It’s about everyone. It’s about everyone. We know that people who have not let us in today, they are not thinking about us. They are only thinking of them.

“Here’s what you need to do. I need each and every one of you to get in touch with your inner scrappy little dyke.”

Most Americans are unafraid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk knowing their Social Security numbers or analyzing their tax returns – they want the tax returns of elites in Congress reviewed to determine how they became multi-millionaires while doing nothing about fraud. How did Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) get so rich, anyway, and was it constitutionally kosher? What are Dem crocodiles so desperate to conceal?

Progressives proclaim they are defenders of the poor and claim DOGE is impoverishing Americans’ children. Legacy media headlines include titles such as “Elon Musk’s DOGE seeks access to sensitive and restricted IRS data” and “DOGE efforts to access private data spark sharp pushback.” But “We the People” clearly want what Becca Balint scrappily calls “record the truth and get the truth out.” That’s DOGE.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), announced on February 19:

“The vast majority of improper payments and fraud occurs via large means-tested federal entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) meant to serve elderly, poor or otherwise vulnerable populations. Over the years, trillions of federal payments under these programs have gone to non-deserving beneficiaries, including fraudsters, members of criminal organizations and transnational theft rings. This dynamic accelerated in recent years, due to the high susceptibility to fraud of emergency pandemic relief programs, as well as policy decisions by the Biden Administration that expanded entitlement program eligibility while relaxing fraud controls such as identify verification.”

Surely Maxine and Becca want this scrappy mess cleaned up so Americans are left more than scraps for their futures? President Bill Clinton boldly said he wanted to “Make America Great Again,” and on February 10, 1993 – only weeks into his presidency – issued an Executive Order directing federal agencies to eliminate 4% of personnel. This was not derided as an attack on the working class but as a delivery of campaign promises. On April 4, 1995, he proclaimed:

“More than 2 years ago, I promised to fix the Federal Government. I was firmly convinced that we could do more with less, that we could create a Government that was leaner but not meaner, and that we could make Government our partner rather than a problem.”

President Trump has offered far more generous severance packages to federal employees than the Clinton administration. The DOGE effort to uncover fraud while preserving legitimate government programs seeks a “leaner but not meaner” federal government. Yet, lean and mean Democrats strive to prevent transparency in the name of “protecting the little guy.” The “scrappy little dyke movement” seeks to preserve the crony criminality of elites at the expense of the blue-collar Americans who vaulted President Trump into a second term to ensure their government was a partner and not a problem.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not invoke her gender, physique, or sexual orientation to describe the DOGE agenda:

“President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the DOGE team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration.

“…So their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things….

“Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them. Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money. Number three, to protect the integrity of this system for hard working Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives. So, …if you paid into the system, honestly, you will continue to receive your Social Security tax checks.”

In his 1865 short story The Crocodile, Fyodor Dostoyevsky satirized Russian bureaucrats through the tale of Ivan Matveich, a government employee who, after taunting a circus crocodile, is swallowed alive. Ivan comes to enjoy his new life in the crocodile’s bowels, the story ending with his determination to carry on his job as a “civil servant” from within its bile-filled belly.

As the DOGE investigations continue, working-class Americans will wonder: Has the federal government become a corrupt USSR-era cabal of graft requiring further purging and fiscal guillotines, or a loyal partner under false attack by Elon Musk and President Trump? Voters will learn whether Waters and Balint cry crocodile tears to distract their victims and protect their comfy life within the belly of the beast.