Cuomo is a Terrible Leader
As the U.S continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is becoming increasingly clear that many of our state, local and national leaders have failed to act responsibly and deliver rational solutions to the political, economic and social challenges the nation faces due to the pandemic. One leader who has earned every ounce of criticism hurled his way is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
In the early stages of the pandemic, Democrats and the media dubbed Cuomo a “role model” and “hero,” often referring to him as the modern Franklin Roosevelt, and likening his handling of the coronavirus to Roosevelt’s treatment of the Great Depression. They hoped he would instill a sense of confidence in Americans and fill the leadership void supposedly left by President Trump.
If there’s any notion that’s so divorced from any semblance of reality during this pandemic, it is this idea that Cuomo’s handling of the virus has been a resounding success worthy of praise and emulation by other leaders. In actuality, from the onset of the pandemic last March to the present, the governor’s leadership during the pandemic has been a spectacular failure that needlessly and irresponsibly placed New Yorkers and other Americans in danger.
“…from the onset of the pandemic last March to the present, the Governor’s leadership during the pandemic has been a spectacular failure that needlessly and irresponsibly placed New Yorkers and other Americans in danger.” Source: diana_robinson via Creative Commons
To start, after the CDC published its initial recommendation of a 14-day quarantine after traveling out of state for all New York state residents back in March, Cuomo and Howard Zucker, the New York State Health Commissioner, ignored the recommendation. This move helped the virus decimate New York and likely triggered countless outbreaks across the United States. Moreover, Cuomo downplayed the threat of the virus. On March 2, Cuomo cautioned against unnecessary fear and described the seasonal flu as a greater worry.
“We are fully coordinated, and we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops,” Cuomo said.
This failure to act quickly, likely hampered by Cuomo’s petty power struggle with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, proved to be deadly. Dr. Thomas Frieden, former head of the CDC and former commissioner of the city’s health department, claims that if New York had adopted widespread social distancing measures a week or two earlier, then the death toll could have been reduced by somewhere between 50%-80%.
As if these blunders were not horrendous enough, Cuomo took an even more egregious action. On March 25, Cuomo’s Department of Health prohibited nursing homes from denying patients who had tested positive for the Coronavirus admission to these facilities, as well as from testing readmitted residents. This order “mysteriously” disappeared from the New York State website around May 5 when the Governor issued another order seemingly to invalidate his previous one. The consequences of the order were deadly. The virus spread rapidly in nursing homes, with an estimated 14% of New York nursing home residents have lost their lives to the virus. This stands in stark contrast to states like Florida, a state that prohibited nursing homes from accepting people with the virus, where that number was a much lower 1.6% in the weeks following Cuomo’s order and is better than the national average overall.
Cuomo attempted to hide and lie about his nursing home disaster for months, rejecting calls for an independent investigation into his handling of the pandemic and nursing homes as nothing but “political attacks” by state and congressional Republicans. However, on Jan. 28, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, a fellow Democrat, issued a report that Cuomo’s administration had undercounted the Coronavirus-related deaths related to nursing homes by as much as 50%.
What, you might ask, was our “hero’s” response to the report? Did he issue an apology or acknowledge his mistakes as any admirable leader would? The answer: absolutely not. Instead, Cuomo proceeded to avoid any and all responsibility for the disasters created by his policies and baselessly blamed everyone but himself –– hospitals, nursing homes, the federal government, the CDC and President Trump –– for his own doing, a tactic he has overused throughout the pandemic.
When confronted about his nursing home debacle, Cuomo callously dismissed the issue.
“But who cares — 33 [percent], 29 [percent] — died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died,” Cuomo said.
While this was one of the most morally reprehensible statements ever given by an elected official in the state of New York, it comes as no surprise from a man so cynical and devoid of basic decency that he once said that conservative Republicans do not belong in New York.
Beyond his reckless nursing home policy, Cuomo has been more than willing to flex his authoritarian muscle. He refused to allow New Yorkers to engage in free actions in a free society, keeping restaurants, gyms and other small businesses in lockdown throughout the summer, even when cases and deaths remained low. In fact, a recent international study found that lockdowns had no superior benefit in slowing the spread of the virus when compared with other voluntary measures, making his restrictions even more difficult to justify. Additionally, in true Orwellian fashion, Cuomo issued residence restrictions that limited in-home gatherings to 10 people. This is a move that is disturbing to witness in a constitutional republic.
As Robby Soave put it in Reason Magazine, “a government that can legally prohibit everyone in an entire state from hosting a familial number of guests within their own private residences is essentially unconstrained in a major sphere of American domestic life.”
Cuomo should be a subject of harsh criticism, not widespread praise. It is reasonable to claim that some of his mistakes can be attributed to a lack of knowledge regarding the nature of the virus at the outset of the pandemic and widespread uncertainty regarding how to manage the virus both in the US and globally. However, Cuomo’s refusal to accept any blame for his enormous errors, willingness to watch countless businesses fail under ridiculous lockdown rules and attempts to cover-up his nursing home ineptitude by purposely manipulating the coronavirus death statistics to avoid federal scrutiny are wholly unacceptable.
In general, this pandemic has revealed that Cuomo is exactly the kind of person that Democrats have argued former President Trump is: a petty, power-hungry celebrity politician with a massive ego to boot.
The Governor recently claimed that “incompetent government kills people.” How ironic. As of the writing of this article, New York ranks only behind New Jersey in terms of the highest deaths per million in the United States. New York was doing poorly enough under Cuomo’s leadership prior to the pandemic and his recent incompetence and authoritarian streak only add to the list of reasons he should be thrown out of office. I encourage supporters of Cuomo to reconsider their allegiance to him and urge my fellow New Yorkers to vote against him in 2022.