The Trump Express / Year 2025 has Brought Speed & Technology to the Bureuacracy
Need for Speed
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There seems the finest of lines these days between reality and fiction. Even Hollywood screenwriters have a hard time staying ahead of reality. By the time their movie is made, the world has moved on to some current news.
Today, the news moves at the fastest time in history. Yet speed of movement has found little interest. Rather studied was the content of the news. Time allowed this study of content with the original slow speed of news. It is barely possible today.
One can study and reflect on content of news these first months of 2025. Yet, the news will have passed you by. So, it doesn’t help to reflect or think about things these days? This might reflect the growing response of people today. I’m reminded of the famous dictum of Socrates that “an unexamined life is not worth living.” How would Socrates handle things.
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Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, I think both can agree the speed news swept over DC was like a storm of change the city had ever seen. Whether it was a good or bad “storm of change,” everyone would agree, it increased the speed of news. In all this speed, the president found a best friend in the world’s great tech person and brought him aboard his administration. Head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
For Musk and his tech people at DOGE, efficiency also meant speed. The team found a bureaucracy held together by early computer technology. The old equipment is displayed on tv one night. The old disc systems, floppy disks, still in use. The equipment used by the airports out of date with increasing near misses.
They also found a slow, responding system. One of the favorite stories that Musk likes to tell is about how slow the processing of federal employees out of the government. The whole operation was in a cave in Pennsylvania with an old elevator that moved slow carrying recorded of federal employees retiring. Musk speeded up the process of retirement for federal employees.
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The greatest reason for the speed of this attack of DC and news in general, the president had four years out of office. It could never have been done if he seceded himself. The years out of office, besides filled with lawfare and a close assassination attempt, were years which drew many to his ideas. There were important documents like the 2025 Plan and others.
Trump was only the second president after Grover Cleveland to be out of office and then re-elected back in office. (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President. But Trump now could look at DC from outside. Being inside DC one has less freedom to plan, knowing what one learns. But Trump hit the ground running with a cabinet picked and pushed through Congress with a speed that would be a signature style of the new administration.
Speed & Technology versus The Current Bureacracy
Speed of news with Trump represents a great change from the Biden administration. But more, a great change from the normal speed the DC bureacracy operates in. Yet, this new speed is hardly noticeable in the magnitude of ideas attempted to be implemented. Just this fact alone – speed of news – says much about current civilization. Not only the American civilization, but global. News mixes with entertainment, movies, text messages (in and out), all various social media platforms, the writers on the substacks you signed up for. Messages from LinkedIn. It goes on and on.
Behind all of this, is the new administration.
The new administration represents much to so many. But perhaps what it represents more than anything is bringing modern technology to an old, taped together bureaucracy. Part of this technology is speed. This is an important element the administration is bringing to DC. The bureaucracy has corruption as DOGE has found. But perhaps the greatest failure of the bureaucracy is its’ slowness. This is inefficient (and dangerous) in a world which is fast. Like driving 20 mph on an LA freeway.
Most focus on differences in content and ideology between the left and right, the Democrats and the Republicans. Few focus on speed of operation rather than ideology. Many get caught up in the stickiness of ideology – of content – rather than context.