1. To take a functioning, well-regarded institution or initiative and, through a combination of breathtaking incompetence and
shameless cronyism, transform it into a smoldering ruin of wasted public funds — while ensuring that one's spouse, college roommates, campaign donors, and third cousins twice removed emerge inexplicably enriched.
2. (informal) To announce, with
great fanfare and a podium, the launch of an ambitious project that
will quietly disappear — unfinished, uninvestigated, and over-budget — approximately fourteen months later.
"He took it to himself to deblasio that neighbourhood
library renovation. It's now a valet parking service for his book club."
"The city's beloved free composting program was fully deblasio'
d within eighteen months, somehow ending up as a $400 million consulting contract awarded to the mayor's
brother-in-law's llama farm."