Grigory Potemkin was a favorite lover of Catherine the Great. He was assigned the task of rebuilding the Crimea after it was devastated by war. According to legend, that was too much like hard work so he constructed stage set villages.
As the barge of the Empress progressed down the Dnieper River, paid extras dressed as phony peasants waved from the phony villages on the shore. Overnight the villages would be moved downstream and the entire charade reenacted the next day. Viola! The region is on the mend.
As befits a story about fraudulent villages, the story itself may not be true. But the Potemkin Village has become a metaphor for any fraudulent display meant to make viewers believe things are better than they actually are. For decades visitors to the Soviet Union or Mao’s China, for example, were carefully herded by their minders so they saw only those sights that would serve the aims of the regime.
Today, the Trump administration has gone the Potemkin Village one better. On the one hand, much of what is actually up is hidden from view, so the Senate is drafting a healthcare overhaul that even members of the Senate don’t get to see, military actions have been outsourced from the White House to Defense Secretary Mattis and occur without meddling from the President of the United States, revised regulations that favor special interests are instituted by stealth, and government actions that feather the Trump and Kushner nests are allegedly being put silently in place.
Meanwhile, what is on view is designed to distract attention from administrative incompetence, fecklessness or malfeasance, and from multiplying investigations by House, Senate, special counsel and investigative journalists into electoral meddling, possible collusion with Russia, financial chicanery and so on. This actual news is fake news, according to Trump. In its place, we are given a Trump innovation, the “Reality TV” of the Potemkin signing.
The president surrounds himself with administration and congressional extras, and a few selected members of the public who will supposedly benefit from some measure that the president signs with a flourish and proudly displays to the cameras. The standard photo op, in short.
Except the Trump version isn’t a bill signing creating a new program or appropriating money to help create jobs, make healthcare more affordable, protect our borders, or improve our infrastructure. The hapless, understaffed, disorganized administration and the bickering congressional Republicans are incapable of accomplishing any major task.
So, Trump is signing memos. Recently he hosted a lad who he extolled for turning around his life by finishing an apprenticeship program that made him gainfully employable. Good for him. But he was only there as a prop as Trump signed something he claimed would do the same for many more struggling Americans.
in fact, Trump’s memo suggested that the appropriate department study the idea and recommend how to make more of such programs available. And if they ever compete such a study, it might be sent to Congress which might deign to design such an endeavor, but probably won’t, and would be unlikely to appropriate any funds to finance it. Still, as far as the audience knows, this is just another day of Trump making Americans believe things will eventually be great again, or adequate, or won’t get too much worse.
Those who attended Trump University eventually discovered to their sorrow that it was a con, but outside observers may have believed it was for real. Trump may even have believed it was real. And today, he may even believe the Potemkin signings are accomplishing something. Or he may think they are serving the useful purposes of getting him his daily dose of airtime and distracting the attention of the public from the investigations his lawyers claim are not actually taking place or targeting him. Fake news of a nevertheless cruel Witch Hunt. Sad.