Political Windmills

Why do some elected officials avoid reality altogether and act like "Facts are the enemy of truth." These were words spoken by Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s book “Don Quixote.”[1] What does it mean to fight windmills in public administration? It means fighting nothing important or real, just imaginary enemies and issues. The windmill may be the “phantom illegal employee action,” “phantom annexation” or the “phantom memo.” All meaningless matters, which one builds into something solid and formidable in one’s mind and because it’s a public issue gains gravity.[2] Everybody wants to be somebody even if it's only Don Quixote fighting windmills. Dealing with windmill issues is irritating, divisive and devoid of fact. You can't defend something that is not there to surrender. Some people just cannot come to the realization that these windmills are imaginary, that one can remove them by not endowing them with strength and importance. A slightly different version of this is shown by the following story: The conductor calls for everyone to board the train from New York to Chicago. Many people from the station board the train. About the time the train is pulling out of the train station, one woman says she’s on the train to Paris. The conductor corrects her by stating again that it’s the train to Chicago. The woman leans over and tells the passenger next to her that she’s on the train to Paris. The fellow passenger asks the conductor if the train is going to Paris and the conductor says “no’ that it’s going to Chicago and the passenger says that the woman who told him seemed very sincere about the train going to Paris. Pretty soon someone else asks the conductor why the train is going to Paris because they need to go to Chicago and again the conductor states it’s the train to Chicago. Eventually there is a panic about the train going to Paris rather than Chicago. The train ends up in Chicago. Our political landscapes are full of windmills.
[1] Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. “Don Quixote,” Part I published in 1605; Part II in 1615.
[2] Appleby, Paul. “Government is Different” 1945 - reprinted in Classics of Public Administration, sixth edition. Edited by Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde, page 119-123