New York is reeling from a nasty case of Cuomomania

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Picture: AFP

A year ago this week two highly contagious viruses with serious consequences for public health burst into the lives of Americans.

In the first week of March 2020 the US was properly introduced to the novel coronavirus that took over our world, claimed the lives of more than half a million people here and led to lockdowns that have done unimaginable damage to the economy.

But it was in the same week that another condition first began to grip large numbers of Americans, especially those in the media, entertainment and Democratic Party firmament. This was Cuomomania, a virulent sickness of the mind caused by prolonged favourable exposure to Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York.

The main symptoms of the condition were a pronounced weakness at the knees whenever the Democratic governor came on television, a tendency to exclaim adulatory gibberish about Cuomo, and a mental fog that led the patient to suffer a complete inability to see or hear evident facts. Celebrities lined up to declare themselves “Cuomosexuals”. Columnists drooled. There was a brief campaign to have the governor crowned as the Democratic candidate for president.

The primary cause of the pathology was Cuomo’s hosting of a daily press briefing during the first months of the Covid pandemic. Every morning he gave an account of the grim daily statistics for New York’s infections, hospitalisations and deaths, along with announcements about business closures, travel restrictions and other measures to limit the spread.

But he would also use the opportunity to share some homespun homilies about courage in the face of adversity. Many evenings he would engage in jocular jousting on national television with his brother, Chris, who happens to be a host of a nightly show on CNN. Don’t let anyone ever suggest there’s anything incestuous about progressive politicians and the media organisations that adore them.

The delirium Cuomo induced in susceptible minds was doubtless accentuated by his contrast with Donald Trump. The then president’s own performances at the time, scowling, confrontational, often dismissive of the severity of the pandemic, with occasional baffling diversions into quackery, were an alarming world away from Cuomo’s sober, realistic but reassuring assessments.

But all along Cuomomania, far from being an involuntary condition of disordered minds, was a wilful, carefully orchestrated exercise in deception. A handful of dissenting reporters and commentators pointed out at the time that Cuomo’s record was terrible. New York got hit by the virus harder, earlier than almost anywhere in the world. This was due in large part to the governor’s initial breezy dismissal of its severity and his refusal to take action soon enough to protect New Yorkers. To this day, a year after the New York stable door was bolted too late, the state continues to have the second highest number of deaths per million population. The damage to its largest city is immeasurable, perhaps irreparable.

New York got hit by the virus harder, earlier than almost anywhere in the world. Picture: Getty

But there was always much worse. As the state’s medical facilities began to fill with Covid patients in the early days of the pandemic, Cuomo ordered that nursing home residents who had been admitted to hospital but were deemed well enough should be transferred out. Many thousands of these virus-carriers went back into the homes they’d left, turning them into killing grounds for Covid.

Fearful they could face a political and even a legal backlash, Cuomo’s officials then covered up the true numbers of those who had died in nursing homes. After a lengthy investigation, in January the state’s own attorney general reported that the governor’s office had underestimated the number of deaths in nursing homes by more than 50 per cent.

All the while, even as much of this was known, or knowable if an inquisitive media had been interested, Cuomo was getting treated like he’d cured cancer. And then things changed.

In the past month a succession of young women have accused the governor of inappropriate behaviour: an unwanted kiss for a young female aide; creepy remarks by a 63-year-old boss to a member of staff inquiring about where she might like to get a tattoo; unsolicitedly caressing the face of a young woman he’d just met at a wedding.

It looks as though these accusations may now pose an existential threat to his governorship. His attorney general has launched an investigation; a number of elected officials in his own party have called for him to resign.

There are important lessons in the rise and fall of Cuomomania: the media’s disturbing abdication of its role in the face of a Democrat’s malfeasance is one. But more important is what this tells us about the relative salience of governing behaviour compared with cultural association and tribalism in determining political choice.

Cuomo’s political and administrative failures are stark. It’s plausibly claimed that his policies led to thousands of deaths and were then covered up in the time-honoured fashion of political corruption.

But he was still a hero because he was on the right side. Until he wasn’t. Once he transgressed the lines of behaviour culturally acceptable to his political tribe, he was in trouble. Just as with Trump, no amount of incompetence or mendacity could seem to harm him. As long as he continued to represent the cultural values of his tribe, he was fine.

It doesn’t bode well for the prospect of good governance in a once-thriving democracy.

The Times