The biggest mistake we make in the Trump era is assuming Trump is doing everything.
Trump isn’t doing everything. He’s standing on a stage pretending to do things.
But the things themselves are being done by the Trump Administration. There are many people in that Administration, and many of them are very smart. But it’s generally the case that the smart people stay well hidden, inside the bureaucracy, allowing idiots to fret and strut, rise and fall, and take the attention of the media and public away from them. This is a feature, not a bug.
We also like to pretend that what’s happening is all improvised, ad hoc. It’s not. The Heritage Foundation has been working on its vision for decades, just as the Federalist Society took decades to take over the courts.
What the Administration and the Heritage Foundation understand, but the media and public don’t, is the difference between the surface of the sea and the sea itself. This means what we’re seeing is just the surface of the sea.
What is happening beneath is the wholesale takeover, not of the government, but of all the institutions in society, by a movement that has been around for decades and that knows what it is doing. The move against Harvard is meant to force all universities to toe the Administration line. The move against the NIH is meant to force all scientists to toe the Administration line.
As Josh Marshall wrote recently in TalkingPointsMemo, it’s working. Institutions that would normally howl at big changes are keeping silent, because anyone within those institutions who makes a stink is put down and put down hard.
Is it authoritarianism? Yes. Is it the end of American democracy? No.
Why This Isn’t the End
It’s not the end because the policies behind the takeover are stupid. Forced adherence to any dogma is stupid, and makes any society that practices it inflexible, blind to rapid change.
Rapid change is the chief hallmark of our time.
I’ve been covering technology all my life. I’ve written and rewritten the same book several times. The reason I stopped trying is that change is happening so quickly it can no longer be summarized between two covers.
The field of AI in late May of 2025 is completely different than it was in November of 2022. We’ve run through some big experiments with Large Language Models, which failed. We’re now onto entirely new techniques of modeling knowledge, like Recursive Self Improvement. Its failures are also becoming apparent, which means we need to go on to the next thing.
It’s impossible for any rigid ideology, no matter how it’s constituted, to keep up with such rapid change. AI is infecting everything, how we communicate, how we learn, how we work, and what we work with. Expecting stability is insane.
This may be why China is such a big threat today. Xi Jinping tried to gain absolute control of his tech industry in late 2020 and found all he was doing was killing it. That control is lighter now, more distant now, and thus more effective. China understands, in a way we have chosen to forget, that the key to economic growth comes in trained minds, given free rein to go in whatever direction they want.
What Happens Next
The way is now open, as it hasn’t been in generations, for people everywhere to take the process of change into their own hands. That keyboard in front of you, that Internet you’re connected to, is the greatest leveler in the history of civilization. Since our country is no longer leading the way, your country can, your company can, you can.
I’m constantly reading of start-ups in Europe, in Asia, even in the global South, doing remarkable things with the latest technology, even inventing new technologies and techniques capable of transforming entire societies.
We are in an age of miracles and no ideology, no matter whose it is, is going to stop it. Want to know what’s going to defeat Trumpism?
That.
