Delightful! I love both having this type of small revelation about other cultures and seeing mine recognized and appreciated by others. We shall persist, I have faith.

But let's remember: those now-discarded DOGE kids stumbled so that Vought could run. Now he's working with proven systems for starving and wrecking government capacity, against a government with a weakened immune system. The damage is going to be generational.

How about Shade's Children by Garth Nix? It doesn't end on a fully pessimistic note, but it might fit the brief anyway.