This Is How Democrats Can Counter Elon Musk

Opinion|This Is How Democrats Can Counter Elon Musk

If anyone on the left should be rooting for Elon Musk, it’s me.

In 2011, the nonprofit I founded started bringing mostly young programmers and designers into government offices. We needed access to data systems to do our jobs, but many public servants were fearful that our teams might “move fast and break things” — so sometimes nothing moved at all.

Later, I helped found the U.S. Digital Service in the White House under President Barack Obama. The tech talent that came in was a little older and more experienced, but the dynamic was the same. Over time, I became frustrated with the layers of process and procedure that encrust so much of government operations, and the ways they can backfire, work against the public interest and erode trust in our institutions.

I’ve called for deproceduralization, a kind of deregulation not of the private sector but of government itself — from the Pentagon to the Agriculture Department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — so that it can move faster, be bolder and get stuff done. I’ve come by my impatience honestly.

Now Mr. Musk is accused of many of the things I was criticized for: importing tech talent, impatience with the status quo and a desire for disruption. He has even taken the U.S. Digital Service as his vehicle, renaming it the U.S. DOGE Service, after his “department of government efficiency.”

But my goal — the goal of many Democrats and Republicans alike — has been to revitalize government. Mr. Musk seems to be trying to destroy it. The events of the past week suggest a fundamentally different motivation.

Democrats must take care at this moment not to confuse tactics with goals. They shouldn’t define themselves simply as Mr. Musk’s operational opposite, leaving themselves defenders of a broken status quo. Their goal must be a muscular, lean, effective administrative state that works for Americans.