{Editor’s Note: Liberty Nation’s Pennel Bird presents a two-part portrait of Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo – two New Yorkers with similar starts in life, similar traits, but very different beliefs and approaches. What follows is part two: both men face reversals of fortune, but can either regain the lofty political heights they once commanded? Read Part one here.]
In the Beforetimes, prior to the pandemic, Donald Trump presided over a booming economy and historically reduced unemployment for all Americans – black and Hispanic Americans saw all-time low unemployment rates. He signed the First Step Prison Reform Act, decimated the ISIS caliphate, tackled sex-trafficking, boosted middle-class incomes, gained U.S. energy independence for the first time, signed new trade deals, confronted China’s expansionism, brokered peace deals between Israel and five Arab-Muslim nations and cut taxes. And that’s a shortlist.
When the coronavirus hit, Trump resisted the disproportionate international hysteria that has resulted in global devastations from lockdowns and authorized the “Warp Speed” vaccine delivered by December of 2020.
Meanwhile, New York Governor Cuomo (D) could do no wrong in the early part of the year. He was lauded on the left for his ostensibly decisive leadership during crisis, received an Emmy award for his stewardship of his state –which was, effectively, coronavirus ground zero in the U.S. – and was a guest on his little brother’s T.V. news show multiple times to banter about his love life. Along with Governor Gavin Newsom of California, Cuomo looked to be the most likely candidate in America for a future Democratic Party nomination to the White House.
Despite the catastrophic numbers of dead in New York, Cuomo’s aggressive messaging about his own calm, steady excellence succeeded in throwing up a smokescreen to cover a malignant and metastasizing scandal in the works.
A Deadly Decision
Cuomo had issued a fateful gubernatorial order on March 25 of 2020 that effectively required nursing homes to admit those elderly New Yorkers discharged from hospitals who had tested positive for COVID-19. He later claimed “it never happened,” and state officials tried to scrub the official website of evidence of the incriminating mandate – but the damage was done. It was initially reported that approximately 6,000 elderly citizens died due to this decision – one of the deadliest ever to have been made by an elected official in modern American history. But as the year wound down, evidence emerged of a cover-up: the real number of needless deaths was closer to 15,000 – and they could be laid directly at the feet of the Democrats’ superstar governor.
Oh, the humanity.
An Unexpected Defeat
Trump ended the year with the most votes ever cast for an incumbent president and increased his margins among all those demographics toward whom, we had been gaslit into believing, he had demonstrated racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. Black, Hispanic, and Muslim men and women, white women, and the LGBTQ communities all saw through the deeply cynical media messaging and often doubled their support of him. But it wasn’t enough. The 360-degree street fight Trump waged with the media, Wall St., Silicon Valley, the Democrats, the Never-Trumpers, and the coastal and international elites finally took its toll. The least likely candidate to secure the nomination in a lifetime did just that: Joe Biden won the presidency.
There were many reasons to wonder at the results of the election, including questions about the legitimacy of last-minute voter laws changed with COVID as a pretext, ballot harvesting, mail-in ballots, the lack of voter I.D., the resistance to purging voter rolls of the deceased, the denial of conservative access to polling sites, and the software and machines themselves. But sufficient evidence of widespread election fraud was never presented, and these concerns were mocked by the left, which only served to increase suspicion on the right. Very soon, “Stop the Steal!” had become a rallying cry, and Trump and his allies did nothing to disabuse his base of this conjecture for which little evidence actually existed.
Surviving Impeachment
On January 6, 2021, then-President Trump used charged rhetoric he should’ve known from his first impeachment would be weaponized against him as a call to arms. Rioters and other bad actors overran the Capitol, an unarmed woman – a Trump supporter – was shot and killed by Capitol Police, and a portion of the blame was laid at the president’s feet. He was later acquitted of the charges by the Senate in an almost unprecedented impeachment trial of a private American citizen - but the damage was done.
Even though 203 arrests were made for breaching the Capitol, only two indictments included a charge of possession of firearms – and neither of those alleged the rioters brandished or discharged their weapons. But the left used the excuse of an “armed insurrection” to barb-wire Washington for the inauguration and packed it with 25,000 national guardsmen.
Trump looked to be leaving office in ignominy. But his support among the 75 million has not wavered appreciably, his anointment as a conservative kingmaker is assured, the truth has been established that no Republican can be elected without the support of his base, and the whispers that he may run again in 2024 are all proof of a potent and lasting legacy – as is his astonishing number of accomplishments.
As it had for Trump, the sky fell on his adversary, Andrew Cuomo, by the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. A scathing report by his attorney general, Letitia James, laid bare the fact that Cuomo’s administration had attempted a cover-up of the additional thousands of nursing home deaths that resulted from his irrational order of March 25. The brash, spin-mastering governor who had stated “who cares?” regarding the particulars of where and how the elderly had died under his watch was in political free-fall. And the final nail in his fortune’s coffin appears to have been hammered in this week with allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him by two former aides.
Two brash, unapologetic, high-profile, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers with impressive political resumes. Two stories fatefully entwined. Like Icarus, both soared too close to the sun and were brought crashing back to earth. The only difference is that a little wax and some additional feathers should ensure Donald Trump’s sky-bound aspirations once again. But the stain of 15,000 deaths directly attributable to his order, compounded by the sexual harassment allegations, will likely be indelible and make it much more difficult for Andrew Cuomo to reverse his suddenly abject political fortunes.
Start spreading the news.
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Read more from author Pennel Bird.
