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| Credit: Bing Image Generator - and the artists whose work taught it. Image prompt in the Notes, below. |
This is not intended to be a political discussion; this is about change in government.
However, anything said about the Trump administration is bound to irritate someone… so I want to own that the statements here are my personal thoughts. (They also aren’t written with AI.)
I also want to be clear about my political status: I am now an elected Democratic politician. However, the focus of this piece is government change, not politics – so I moved my more critical comments into the footnotes. Read them at your own risk.
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As I write this in April 2025, the Trump administration is definitely a tectonic shift in government. Changes that seemed impossible for decades occur with shocking swiftness. (Note #1)
Like many, I was surprised. “Shocking swiftness” is not how we usually talk about the mechanics of government administration.
I was also confused. These events seemed to contradict my “Tectonic Speed of Government” metaphor, which says that government change requires slow and constant effort over long periods of time. (However, events do match the second part of the metaphor: change seems sudden when it does occur.)
Had the Trump administration broken the Tectonic Speed of government? Did the DOGE team have a cheat code that skipped the struggle?
Mulling that over, I realized that my problem was perspective. I am used to watching change from inside the process, aware of the grind. This time, I am outside and all I see is the earthquake ripping the land apart.
The Tectonic Speed Limit
Good news, the metaphor is intact because efforts behind today’s changes go back decades.
As Project 2025 (which started in 2022) writes on their website: “Project 2025’s policy book is nothing new. Mandate for Leadership has been published regularly since the 1980s.” https://www.project2025.org/truth/ Many date it back to the early 1970s… do a web search for the “Powell Memo” for more.
So, the Trump administration is not an exception, although I have no idea if that “proves the rule” (Note #2). Change in government still requires pressure over time. If you asked the authors of Project 2025, I am sure they’d tell you of a grueling slog over 50 years. Slashing the size of government was not on the agenda of Republican Presidents after Reagan (i.e., Bush 41 and Bush 43) so it was almost 30 years between the end of Reagan and their next chance with the start of Trump’s first term. (Note #3)
I am guessing that the disorganized efforts of Trump’s first term led to Project 2025 and its ready playbook for what to do starting on Day 1 of the next opportunity.
Taking Teachings from the Trump Administration and Project 2025
Here is what the Trump Administration is doing well: they are taking full advantage of a period of change. This is a key takeaway: when change in government begins to happen, create as much change as you can as quickly as possible.
You can do this because as processes start to change, they become malleable, and you have a great opportunity (and a limited time) to make updates before a new status quo calcifies into place.
Here is another point from Project 2025: have a playbook for change ready, so that you can be prepared. Since most of the time spent creating change is in slowly applying pressure, writing a playbook is a wonderful way to spend your time while you’re waiting for the change to begin. (Note #4)
An Optimistic Thought (Note #5)
I want to close this piece with some optimism.
Recently I have had several conversations with people in which they express their absolute dismay about the current administration, then they remark that I’m surprisingly untroubled about events. (I should note that these are people with similar political views. Of course, not everyone agrees with me - see Note #6)
Here is my explanation: my background gives me a different perspective, which I’d like to share – in the hope that maybe it will help you, too.
My career working with government administration (and college degree in History) taught me to view governments from a perspective of decades – not weeks or months. Yes, we are in a time of disruptive change right now. However, the Tectonic Speed metaphor tells us that this only lasts for a short time before a new status quo sets in.
The new status quo will be different from what we had, but the status quo is always changing if you take the long view. Change swung one way during the Biden administration and is now heading in a different direction. Our political system has always been a push-pull between alternate viewpoints – to use an IT cliche: “it’s a feature, not a bug.”
While I’m not looking forward to the next few years of chaos, I believe in America. Even if our institutions are not pulling their load now (*ahem* Congress), there are still good people working for the best interests of the American people at all levels of government. America will still exist after the Trump Administration. (Note #7) The pendulum will swing back and a new equilibrium will emerge.
Notes
Image prompt: "Seen from a distance, an earthquake is visible as a long gash in the ground and it is causing several government buildings to collapse" This specificity was added after early images were too wimpy. I wanted the picture to reinforce that this Tectonic Shift is truly destructive.
Note #1: Originally, I had some examples listed here. From my first draft: dismantling the Department of Education, altering pentagon procurement, and declassifying the John F Kennedy papers. However, I needed to keep updating these with each re-write, so just think about the wildest examples you’ve seen recently.
Note #2: I’ve always been bothered by the phrase “the exception that prove the rule.” It never made sense to me. A good Wikipedia page on this provides a few different interpretations, some of which I liked. The one that resonates the most: the fact that someone is claiming an exception implies that there is a rule in the first place. But this only makes sense if people are claiming there is no rule at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule
Note #3: Actually, the best effort at reducing the federal government in the past 35 years came during the Clinton presidency, when the National Partnership for Reinventing Government made headway under the leadership of Al Gore. This article notes that between the direct effort to shrink government and the slowdown on defense spending (those were the jubilant years after the Soviet Union collapsed) they cut 420,000 jobs. https://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/what-reinvention-wrought/62836/ As of April 3, the Trump administration is at 280,000. (https://nypost.com/2025/04/03/business/elon-musks-doge-slashed-280000-jobs-from-federal-government/) However, the Clinton-Gore effort did it gradually over five years, instead of chaotically all at once.
Note #4: I had an experience like this in 2009, when I was waiting to find out if I’d be taking over a movie theater. (Spoiler alert: I did… https://www.cutheaterhistory.com/art-theater-hess) During the year while I was waiting, I poured my energy into writing a detailed business plan with everything from the new lobby layout to the way we’d do pre-show introductions. Writing that document allowed me to hit the ground running when I took over in 2010.
Note #5: “An Optimistic Thought” was the title of a book review I wrote, which I recommend for anyone who is in their 40s and feeling like life has gotten harder - regardless of the macro political events! The short version: happiness surveys show that life satisfaction is lowest in your 40s, then gets better. https://blog.tectonicspeed.com/2018/11/an-optimistic-thought.html
Note #6: I received my first negative comments as a politician! I was told by someone, that they “Had no idea you (Sanford) were the extremist that you are.” To be clear, this person is not a close friend, and I have not spoken to them in more than 9 years – and that was in a professional capacity as their client. While I hardly consider myself an extremist, if opposing the current Administration’s attack on American liberties makes me one, then I'll borrow Barry Goldwater's line that “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Fun fact, that was written by another Hess: Goldwater’s speechwriter Karl Hess (no relation).
Note #7: To me, the most depressing aspect of today’s events is the missed opportunity to make real and lasting change for efficiency in government. After DOGE is done ripping through the bureaucracy, the reaction for decades will be to avoid efficiency improvements due to the trauma of today’s events. (For more of my thoughts on that: https://blog.tectonicspeed.com/2025/02/the-hypersonic-speed-of-government.html)