Potemkin Villages All The Way Down
The Biden Administration isn't so much cooking the books as they are crowing about "successes", aka Potemkin Projects, that don't matter.
I saw this tweet yesterday and thought it was so ridiculous it had to be from a parody account - but it just proved Malcolm Muggeridge correct when he said:
"We live in an age in which it is no longer possible to be funny. There is nothing you can imagine, no matter how ludicrous, that will not promptly be enacted before your very eyes, probably by someone well known."
Here is the actual tweet from the Department of Defense:
@USArmy
Maj. Rachel Jones found solace after coming out as a transgender female. Her journey from battling depression & suicidal thoughts to embracing authenticity inspires us all. #whyweserve
The tweet links to this story.
I am reminded of times when in turnaround situations, I have worked with teams that scrambled to show progress on a particular projects. Not having made tangible, meaningful progress toward the project goals, the team would find something largely irrelevant to the goals in an effort to show they were doing something - anything - rather than simply saying "this isn't working" or "we are going to take another approach".
I could respect a team leader who honestly said, “Mike, we’re stuck, we have been throwing ourselves into the project and nothing is working. We’re really trying, we’re just so deep in the hole, we don’t know how to get out.”
That’s someone I can work with.
Rather than admitting they needed help, some teams would trot out ancillary things like progress on customer or vendor surveys, progress on HR training, improvement in team member work attendance, processing documents faster, the digitizing of project information or the creation of some new spreadsheet to replace the old spreadsheet already designed to track their progress or cost management.
All of which were rolled out with the requisite PowerPoint presentations - in color - and with major fanfare.
Of course, some of these things were important and needed to be done, but they weren't things that were on the critical path of moving the project toward completion. Some of these weren't the team's fault - due to poor prior management painting the project team in a corner by not providing resources or management support when it was needed.
Due to them being stuck, the teams endeavored to create the perception of progress (the illusion of forward motion) where there was little progress that really mattered to the project. In sum, the only thing that was moving were the hands on the clock, ticking toward a late delivery (in some cases, waaaaay late).
I coined the term “Potemkin Projects” to describe a project with a bright PowerPoint façade with nothing substantial behind it.
The Biden Administration, especially the geniuses in Biden's Cabinet, are masters at this sleight of hand.
I can't count on all my fingers and toes the times a Biden official has done an interview, sent out a press release (or a tweet), or testified in Congress about some extortionary success they have that is simply irrelevant or completely absent of meaning to the goals of the nation.
The Defense Department tweet is a pretty good example of how an organization crows about "progress" when that progress is completely unconnected with the mission of the organization. No amount of PR fluffernuttering about transgenderism will teach or equip command officers or soldiers to kill people or break things better or faster.
Myorkas ginning up a new spreadsheet with formulas that calculate bullshit metrics is another.
“The border is under control and illegal crossings are down.”
Neither of which is true.
Biden and his team has now cooked up the term "Bidenomics" to claim successes they literally had nothing with which to do as most of these "successes" would have happened without federal intervention/involvement as our economy recovered from yet another Democrat caused disaster - just as it did when Reagan's policies of letting the economy heal on its own produced two decades of widespread gain for the American people after Carter’s disastrously awful presidency.
What did I do in my situation?
I helped them set achievable goals for the next meeting, committed to providing the resources to achieve them and told them if meaningful progress was not demonstrated as measured by our mutually agreed upon schedules and goals, I would blow the team up and re-staff it.
We have a chance to blow up this ridiculous team in Washington, including Democrats and enabling Republicans, in a little over a year.
Let's git 'er dun.
No more Potemkin government.
I think it is wonderful that Biden is owning the pathetic economic situation by naming it after himself. He so badly wants a legacy.
Nothing more need to be said, and I agree - Let's get-er done!