Well, you could if the package was set up differently, or if you wanted to go at it manually. But they way the maintainers set the dependencies makes apt think it has to remove the whole DE, or at least a bunch of essential parts of it.
Can't you pass something like --unmerge or --nodeps so package manager will ignore dependencies? And then add it to apt equivalent of package.prpvided to tell that this package is managed by another package manager(you).
Obvious? It's closed source software. You don't know jack fucking squat what it's really doing no matter what you think you know. Because you don't. You won't no matter what you think you know even if you think you're a programmer. You didn't program Windoze. GTFO from ALL closed source software, OR ELSE.
Is this some AI generated answer? I refuse to think a person can talk like that.
The "obviously" comes from the article which states that Microsoft allows uninstallilng software which obviously means they always could do that. They just didn't want to allow users to do it.