Move fast, break things

By Marilyn Moore

“Move fast, break things” has been cited by Elon Musk as the mantra for the (unelected, unvetted) crew of programmers working under the made-up name of the Department of Government Efficiency, known by the acronym DOGE.  They have certainly done that.  And they have been joined by the various secretaries of the President’s cabinet, who have also moved fast, and broken things.  

That practice, “move fast, break things,” was first verbalized by Mark Zuckerberg, describing the work of the early developers of Facebook, in the early 2000’s.  It applied to software development, and it was meant to convey a practice of getting a lot done, quickly, without stopping to fix mistakes along the way.  It became the motto of start-up tech companies, each trying to be the first to get the newest product out the door and in the hands of the user.  Could be that's why so many new games/apps/programs were quickly followed by fixes, as the mistakes weren’t found until the product was in the hands of thousands of users.  

Move fast, break things.  Kind of like a first draft.  But in software, as in writing a novel, eventually the errors have to be corrected.  The flaws in the code, or in the plot lines, have to be made right.

And the US government is neither software, nor a novel.  We’ve all seen the results of “move fast, break things.”  The engineers in charge of nuclear reactors fired, then a frantic effort to rehire.  Same for the team working on the virus that causes avian flu. Air controllers offered early retirement incentives, when our air traffic control system is seriously understaffed.  Clinics to control infectious diseases shut down, food supplies to areas of extreme poverty undelivered because drivers were fired, medical research cancelled as patients were in the middle of treatment programs – the list goes on and on.  And there’s an addition to the list every day.

Within this daily assault of hundreds of broken things, there are two patterns that concern me the most.  Well, three, actually, starting with the first, that most of these actions are constitutionally suspect – carried out by the executive branch without the legal power to do so. Programs have been ended and funding streams stopped, programs and funding that were authorized and directed by Congress, who has the constitutional authority for appropriating funds, flagrantly upended at the executive branch level.  At the same time, court orders are being ignored, Constitutional judicial processes (can you say “due process?”) are bypassed, and judges are threatened.  In dictatorships, the dictator tells the courts what to do.  In democracies, the courts determine what is constitutional, and what is not, what is legal, and what is not. 

The second pattern that concerns me is that what has been broken is faith and trust in the United States.  Our word is no longer trustworthy.  When a farmer holds a contract from the United States Department of Agriculture, pledging financial reimbursement for certain conservation practices, which the farmer has implemented, and then payment is not made, trust is broken.  When a local food bank holds a contract from that same USDA, pledging payment for fruits and vegetables grown by local growers and then distributed to hungry neighbors, and then the contract is cancelled, trust is broken.  When a local school district is in the third year of a $7 million contract from the US Department of Education that funds school counselors in elementary schools to support students’ mental health, and the district is notified that the contract is being cancelled, trust is broken.  When our international allies can no longer depend on treaties and trade agreements we have signed, trust is broken.  There’s an algorithm for how much time and how many actions it takes to re-establish trust, once broken.  I don’t know the algorithm.  I do know it will take years to make up for the number of times the US’s word has been broken. 

Another pattern of “broken things” that is harder to quantify but no less real is the spirit and confidence of people living in the US, people for whom the future is suddenly much less hopeful, much more frightful.  Mary Kay Roth recounted in her blog last week the stories of people whose lives who have been affected by the Trump administration.  I would add to them….my friend who is frightened at the prospect that Medicaid payments will not be available for her spouse who requires assisted living.  Retired friends who have watched as their retirement savings were decimated in three months, unlikely to recover in their lifetimes.  Small business owners who can no longer get the inventory they need because of the imposition of tariffs on products from other countries.  Farmers who watch their markets for grain disappear because of trade wars. CEO’s of large firms, who cannot plan for the future in any reasonable way because of monetary policy uncertainty.  These are persons who know there are always risks, but who have always been confident in the future, and they no longer are.  When the people of a nation are mostly afraid, the nation does not move forward.  

Broken trust.  Broken spirits.  Big errors, not easily fixed.  Maybe not fixable.  And yet….perhaps in the brokenness, there’s the crack that lets the light in.  Because, as Leonard Cohen writes, “There’s a crack in everything.  That’s how the light gets in.”  Learning is light, and people are learning.  I’ll bet more people know more about due process than they did in early January.  We know that Constitutional rights are guaranteed for everyone in the US, regardless of a person’s citizenship status.  We know what tariffs are, and that we’re part of a global economy.  We know that weather balloons matter, that assistance after floods and tornados matters, that maintenance of national parks matters, that staffing in Social Security offices matters, and that all of these, and hundreds more, are services that have been approved and funded by Congress.  And the American people know that everyone, even the President of the United States, has to follow the direction of the Supreme Court, because no one is above the law.  Who would have thought we would even need to have a poll on this question…but we do.

Broken trust. Broken spirits.  Some of that which is broken is likely irretrievably so.  The light of learning, and engagement, and (I hope) the courage to speak up and tell the stories and defend the foundations of our nation, may result in some of what has been broken being mended. It’s an effort that will take years, and some of us may not live long enough to see what the repair and restoration will look like.  But our children, and our grandchildren, will, and I hope they will say we met this moment well.