The current world orders feel as if they are failing us. In many ways, they are.

The great ideas and systems that helped humanity arrive at this moment in history are struggling to adapt or find their place in a fast-moving and ever-changing world. People and their communities increasingly feel left behind and underrepresented while organizations and governments struggle to keep up with the growing needs of a disempowered society.

In these conditions, anxiety, frustration, and short-sightedness create misleading narratives about “wasteful” spending and “corrupt” leaders. Engaging in meaningful collaboration with an eye for holistic and equitable reform sounds slow and impractical to a world that struggles with patience and thoughtful reflection. Instead, the chosen alternatives are deconstructing and dismantling systems without considering the harmful consequences to people and society.

Those leading today’s aggressive efforts to tear down “wasteful” programs and agencies from the inside claim they are doing so with an eye for innovation and “purging corruption.” In truth, their tactics are nefarious, lazy, and destructive.

The law of evolutionary change informs us that sustainable change that benefits a species or social order occurs generationally, not suddenly. Because all things are interconnected, without slow adaptations, vital systems risk suffering or collapsing if changes are dramatic, quick, or undermine their sustainability. Reforming is a natural result of the need to improve and adapt social systems to emerging external change or pressures. Dismantling, on the other hand, is the result of short-sightedness and self-serving ideological motives.

Those leading today’s aggressive efforts to tear down “wasteful” programs and agencies from the inside claim they are doing so with an eye for innovation and “purging corruption.” In truth, their tactics are nefarious, lazy, and destructive. True innovators design, test, experiment, and build new opportunities that slowly make the old ones less appealing or obsolete. They offer something new and exciting with a pure desire to make the world a better place for everyone. 

There is a reason why those who seek to control and tear down systems bigger than themselves do so: their ideas to create a world in their image are not evolutionary—they are regressive and harmful. Healthy living systems recognize this and naturally reject what does not benefit them. The only alternative, then, is to cunningly overpower the will and design of survival from the inside out, like cancer.

There is a reason why those who seek to control and tear down systems bigger than themselves do so: their ideas to create a world in their image are not evolutionary—they are regressive and harmful.

If Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk seek to improve efficiency at the highest levels of government, they can only do so by deconstructing 250 years of democratic constitutional precedent. Without something better that has been well-tested and proven to meet the needs of a mature and complex nation, the system will inevitably fail. 

We must be wary of and reject those who promise a better tomorrow as they use sledgehammers to whatever fails to align with their ideological principles. Such people are not innovators but regressive, banal, and dangerous to our collective wellbeing.