With 11 accusers, the pressure was on for Cuomo to resign. But it was the words last week from Melissa DeRosa, secretary to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, that truly announced that the age of Andrew Cuomo was over. Melissa’s key statement was, “Personally, the past 2 years have been emotionally and mentally trying.” Huh. Nothing damning about Cuomo, but also nothing supporting him. After years of open fighting between Trump and Cuomo, and two years of COVID, why resign now? After all, it was just a few women complaining about a senior politician getting a bit handsy. Just a few years ago, that could be easily ignored. But today is definitely not a few years ago. The Governor has submitted his resignation.
Soon to be former Governor Cuomo has never been a shrinking violet. He’s never been the one to crumble at a hint of controversy. Cuomo has had his share of scandals. There was that time that he renamed a new bridge after his father instead of “Governor Malcolm Wilson”. OK. OK. It’s his dad, so it’s more of a faux pas, rather than a scandal. We can forgive this. But while Cuomo was focused on the bridge’s name, there wasn’t much focus on inspecting the bridge and finding out that it was littered with broken bolts. A genuine safety issue. And… did any of his own supporters financially benefit from the construction of the bridge? What about the “missing numbers” reported in nursing home deaths during COVID? And a decade ago Cuomo was accused of similar manipulation when the “Moreland Commission”, his own creation to root out government corruption, was disbanded by Cuomo when it started to examine his political allies and funders.
Then there was Joseph Percoco, Cuomo’s right-hand man, who was convicted in 2018 for accepting bribes from executives who received government contracts. Through the years there were other accusations of bribery and favoritism in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts. While lesser politicians might not survive a single such scandal, none came close to unseating Cuomo. At the same time, politicians have routinely survived accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct. Until the last few years.
Today, we routinely see powerful men in business, government, and religion lose their positions due to sexual scandals. Next year (2022) 30 Republicans and Democrats will battle for seats in the Senate. Negative ads, advertisements that attack political opponents, can do more to sway voters than positive ads that speak about your virtues. Has Cuomo’s resignation made campaign managers reconsider ad strategies for 2022? Is it even possible for 30 politicians to run WITHOUT any candidate having some sort of sexual scandal?
But that is merely the appetizer for the political feeding frenzy to come. If Cuomo’s career can be ended by his history with women, what happens to Donald Trump and his followers? Trump was impervious to all sorts of scandals throughout his against him. However, many of the sexual scandals he freely admitted to and even offered more information than we wanted.
We know that Trump slept with porn stars, while he was married to Melania. We know that these porn stars were paid off to keep quiet. Trump argues that whatever happened, it was not illegal. Or in some versions, Trump never PERSONALLY engaged in SIGNIFICANT illegal activities (lots of room for argument there!). But when Trump once volunteered that as the owner of the Miss Teen USA pageant, he could go into the dressing rooms unannounced and see the semi-naked contestants. That’s not just theoretical. Several 1997 and 2001 contestants, who were teens at the time, confirmed that Trump did appear in the dressing rooms and… well… they weren’t dressed.
The Miss Teen USA contestants were as young as 15 years old. In just a few years will the scales of justice work just a little differently? Will molestation and even more serious sexual crimes be more carefully scrutinized? If so, a lot more politicians are likely to retire in the next couple of years.
Never before in US history have the leaders of the Federal government been so old. Half of the members of the US Senate, and 141 Congressmen are over 65. It is arguable that for those who began their political career in the 20th Century, the rules were different. At a guess, sexual predator issues might be more common for older (male) politicians. If so, will both the Democrats and the Republicans try to jettison older candidates because they just can’t deal with the issues? Expect this issue to go on and on until there is some real churn in Washington.
What do you think? Let us know how you see this issue unfolding over the next few years!