In His Own Mind, Maybe

Even if he manages to stagger through the rest of this term, which is less likely by the hour, he’s still going to be remembered for a near-legendary fall from power. https://t.co/IUwucX9VAC via @CharlesPPierce

— Esquire (@esquire) March 12, 2021

I know it's parochial of me to say, but what is "legendary" about Cuomo's governorship?

Those of us outside the Bos-Wash, at least, think of the City when we hear the words "New York."  It seems to be that way inside the state, too.  Almost everything I read about Gov. Cuomo on Maggie Haberman's twitter feed, or in the NYT, is about Cuomo vis a vis NYC and/or Bill de Blasio.  But out here in the hinterlands, we don't really care what Andrew Cuomo has been doing as governor of the state.  In fact, we don't know what he's been doing.

I distinguish between his acts of office and his personal acts in office, which seem to be piling up around him like cordwood or corpses, and I am fully satisfied he is an odious person.  The stories, frankly, get worse and worse:

"I practically squirmed to get away from him .... Then he turned to me with a mischievous smile on his face, in front of all of my colleagues, and said: 'I’m sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable? I thought we were going steady.'" https://t.co/7o9zPmSH9Z

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 12, 2021

Investigations can prove the truth or falsity of such accounts; I really don't care.  I just note that New York state is neither the most populous state nor the most politically, or even culturally, influential state in the union.  Culturally I think California and Texas are far more influential.  If you travel abroad, you might tell people you're from New York, but you'd have to clarify that you mean the state, not the city.  Texans are more inclined to say they are from Texas, rather than just "Americans."  California and Texas are known as distinctive states with distinctive state identities.  The state of New York is subsumed under the identity of the city.  Whatever cultural distinctions come out of it come almost entirely from the one city, alone.

Which is fine, again; I'm not setting up a critique of NYC or NYS or even the people who think New York city runs the country (at least) because it is a media center, but Anne Richards caught everyone's attention when she was the Guvernor Mz. Anne (the only proper way to spell it, btw), and deservedly so.  Was her fall from power after Shrub defeated her "near-legendary"?  It should have been.  Texas had had only one other Republican governor since Reconstruction.  With her ended an era in Texas politics that still echoed the populism of the state Constitution, a populism more honored in the breach than in the keeping since that document was ratified, but one still felt in the liberalism of LBJ, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Anne Richards and her daughter Cecile, and in the native kindness and hospitality of the people here.  But I didn't expect anybody else to notice, and I still don't, really.

The reason California and, to a greater extent, New York are seen as important is because the media centers are there; but in the city of New York, only.  And the "East Coast" (which really means only NYC), sees itself, to this day, as superior to the west coast.  The third coast, with the second most populous state in the union, with Houston and it's diversity of culture that exceeds that of NYC (I just heard this morning that over 145 languages are spoken in my part of Houston.  I don't doubt it for a minute.  But is that how you think of Houston?  Or Texas, for that matter?), is still just "flyover country."

And that's fine with me (as if it's up to me to declare such things good or bad on behalf of the people of this state).  I'm not complaining, just bemused.  If NYC weren't in NY state, most of us would never have heard of Andrew Cuomo.  I can't tell you who the governor of Massachussetts is as I sit here; or of Connecticut, or New Jersey. Not even sure who the governor of Pennsylvania is.  All I know of Cuomo now, apart from the scandal swirling about him, is that he made grandstanding proclamations during the covid epidemic in (again, primarily, for all the news told me) NYC, proclamations which turn out to have rung rather hollow; failures that might have been more glaring had Trump not been such a national failure himself.

But "near-legendary fall from power"?  In his own mind, maybe.  The rest of us have our own idiot governors to contend with.  For the most part, their falls from power would be a relief, not cause for trying to make the fallen tragic heroes in retrospect.

And by the way:  "Cancel culture" has jumped the shark.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo claims to be a 'cancel culture' victim as multiple NY Dems call for his resignation https://t.co/kSh5EV1UR6

— Raw Story (@RawStory) March 12, 2021

At least tragic heroes took responsibility for their failures.