17 April

The Game Is On: The Battle For Who We Are: Cuomo And Trump

by Jon Katz

For analysis or perspective, the cancer of the mind  for journalists is that we (they) get trapped in the epidemic labeling of Americans – especially the “left” and the “right.”

There is no more narrow way of looking at the world.  Fox News and MSNBC are not able to analyze honestly or with perspective because labels kill free and independent thought. If a Fox News commentator were honest, he or she would be finished. Fox News is not that important; it does not create reality; it profits from it. That is very different.

The same applies to a thinker on “the left.”  When the Democrats were in power, the country adopted harsh immigration and deportation policies that were often as cruel as the ones in practice now.  President Obama deported more people than President Trump.

With President Trump in power, his immigration policies are seen as a horror; no Democrat presidential candidate talks any longer about the genuine problems on the border. My life in the country, and on my farm, and my outsiderness,  has given me the gift of distance.

I can – there is no choice – step back and see things I couldn’t know if I only wrote and hid behind a label, even though people often try to label me. It’s the Beavis & Butthead idea. Because I am stupid, I am free. Because I don’t know what I am supposed to think, I can think. It doesn’t mean I am right; it just means I can do what I love, and what modern media rarely does – analyze.

I am free to see one side and then the other. My mind has not yet been forced to shrink and close.  I don’t rely on polls or quote them, ever. I force myself to think for myself, not parrot other people’s thoughts. As I see from the generous response to my political writing, people are hungry for perspective. Me too. Since I don’t see much, I want to try and do it.

The coronavirus has upended our understanding of contemporary politics in ways no one did or could have perceived.

I can understand it best by going small, not large, and focusing on the fascinating emerging conflict of ideologies between New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and President Trump.

They are the perfect symbols of the great divide paralyzing our country.

Today, both President Trump and Andrew Cuomo finally abandoned their increasingly improbable ballet and lashed out at one another, as was inevitable. They each accused the other of whining and failing to do their jobs.

Its time to try to understand what is happening.

Journalists, tied to their computers, don’t seem to go anywhere and talk to anybody any longer unless it’s to shout on television.

Today is an important day, a day of perspective, not posturing. The stakes are pretty high.

Because this Pandemic is unprecedented in our lifetimes, the response to it has been unpredictable. Just when we need open-minded thinkers the most, there don’t seem to be any. Everyone is yelling at one another.

I do not ever tell other people what to think or what to do.

That is just another virus. I don’t argue my ideas on social media. (Yet another virus.)

I don’t write as an advocate for anybody, no matter what anyone might say.  I just share what I think and feel. I have no polls to support me, no authoritative sources to whisper in my ear, or to hide behind.

My name is on everything I write, and I am responsible for every word.

The last few weeks have brought our mushrooming political crisis into some clarity. First, our President is unraveling and overwhelmed. A Pandemic brings out the best and the worst of us.

Our President messed up, overwhelmed and inexperienced. But he is smart and strong and is working feverishly to rebound. So far, he is failing, and profoundly.

Secondly, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has emerged as the leader of the Democratic Party and culture; his press conferences have established him as articulate, caring, well-informed,  honest, and competent.

Almost everyone who watches him comes away with the same thought: he could beat Trump and people would love for him to get the chance. So the clock was ticking.  Today, the gloves came off.

In so many ways, he already has beaten  Trump, at least up to this point. Now, it gets very real.

If you follow the public comments on any recorded appearance of the Governor, you will see tens of thousands of messages pleading with him to run for President.

You will not see those kinds of messages on the comment boards around Mr. Biden’s video appearances.

If you watch both competing daily press conferences, you will see right away that almost everything President Trump does now is in almost direct response to what Governor Cuomo has or hasn’t done or said. The opposite is true as well. The President seems obsessed with the governor, who is certain to return the favor.

The moment everyone knew had to come has come. They are going to war with the country, the soul of the country is on the line.

President Trump is positioning himself as the anti-Cuomo, the champion of the aggrieved, the hater of New York City, the elitist capital of America. Cuomo moves steadily into much-loved role as the anti-Trump, the competent bureaucrat with a heart.

Have there ever been two more different choices for Americans?

Still, it is difficult for me to fathom a President declaring “total power” one day and surrendering it without a word the next.

This week, he has unleashed his Troll Armies against various statehouses  (the white nationalist slogans and Nazi flags are back) and TV shows to challenge the governors who have “mutinied” against him, as he put it.

Andrew Cuomo was one of the targets.

Trump also accused Cuomo of padding the death toll to beef up the corona crisis. In return, Cuomo lectured the President on the meaning of the constitution and asked him not to be “dictatorial.” Today, it got uglier.

In his state, Governor Cuomo’s rural constituency (they are not Nazi’s or skinheads) has marched against  him, declaring him the Governor of “New York City.” His newest big challenge is how to respond.

Talk about drama.

The President is finally at war with at least half of his people, and he loves it.

His position is that he loves and protects only the people who love him. Take it or leave it.

Trump is also at war with himself, addicted to a medium – TV – that no longer works for him, and reveals his him at his worst, not his best. He is coming apart at the seams. TV can be a politician’s best friend or worst enemy. For Trump, it’s becoming the latter.

The camera really doesn’t lie. The President looks awful.

The corporate media seems helpless to do anything but submit to his tirades and lies every day, and why not, the ratings are good and ratings mean profits.

Nothing speaks more eloquently to the rising challenge Governor Cuomo, and his fellow governors have presented to the President than his erratic, angry and unhinged effort to open up the country right now, no matter the consequences.

This is the heart of their conflict. Trump said he was in total control, Cuomo humiliated him by moving ahead and beginning the process of opening things up. Trump replied by accusing Cuomo of padding the city’s death toll to get medical equipment he didn’t need or use.

The Governor has a lot of restless and frightened citizens behind him, they are getting angry. They want their lives back. They are not so sure about staying in this battle, a change Trump has sensed and is working to exploit.

Cuomo has made much of the fact that co-operation with his strict corona regiment is voluntary, and that he can’t really make millions of people do anything if they don’t want to. I’m curious to see how that works out.

This is perhaps the greatest challenge to the moral authority Cuomo has used to rally New Yorkers to his pleas.

It’s a complicated issue for me. I can really see the argument on both sides. We all have to be careful, but people can’t live like this for much longer.

Who doesn’t want to get back to normal? Who doesn’t want to go back to work? Who doesn’t want their kids in school?  Wait until people realize there are not enough tests for them to take to work safely and no vaccine on the horizon for nearly a year.

This will be the Governor’s great challenge –  how to handle the inevitable backlash and rebellion. The President’s fingers are all over it, he can stand up at his podium and disavow any knowledge.

Pandemics aren’t as easy to manipulate as people.

It isn’t that Governor Cuomo is going to run for President, that would be unlikely unless Joe Biden loses his mind. At the moment, he doesn’t need to run for President, he gets all the airtime he wants for free. But everyone who knows him knows he wants to. And day by day, more and more people, Democrats and Republicans, want him to.

The Democrats are getting panicky. How many of Joe Biden’s press conferences have you watched this week?

It was inevitable that Cuomo and Trump would come into open conflict with one another. That, literally or symbolically, will be the political story of the year. And perhaps the most important.

Each embodies the different power centers of the schism tearing the country apart. Because of the Pandemic, this struggle is not being fought in Washington, but out in the country.

Each sees government in a completely different way. Each has a different view of science, of the role of government in our lives, the symbolism of immigration, of the civil service, and perhaps most important, of morality and the truth.

Each one now represents The Choice that America will have to make in November. What kind of government do we want?. What sort of moral authority do we seek in leaders?  What is our country truly about – people or money? How much do we care about lying and corruption? Is a booming economy the only thing we stand for?

For Trump, the disrupter and cynic, moral leadership is for the weak and the Ivy League brainiacs. He is there to get things done. Nothing will stand in his way, perhaps the one thing his followers love about him the most.

New York City, hated all over heartland and rural America as home base for the elitists they hate, is the perfect target for Trump. And Trump, detested by Democrats and unhappy Republicans, is the perfect target for him.

Cuomo has mostly avoided the worst of the political labeling.

He confounded the people who label themselves progressive, outmaneuvering them at almost every turn. He is just a lot bolder and meaner than they are. And the extreme wings of the Republican party hates him for his passion about gun control.

If I were stuck in a “left” or “right” mindset, I couldn’t begin to grasp what was happening. All I could do was get upset or angry about that.

The other day, lots of people got angry with me for even suggesting rural Americans might have some good reasons for loving President Trump.

It was heresy, and I was glad to make the point that I would not be that predictable, no one should be fooled.

With our two available political parties, we have few choices. We see only what we want to see, we talk to ourselves, write only for agreement, argue for vindication, and are rarely challenged or provoked to think and understand anything but what we want to believe.

The journalist becomes an enabler, not an honest broker of reality.

We divide ourselves, caught in a spiraling, maddening cycle that can’t be broken.

If you want to understand President Trump and his nationalist ideology, don’t read the New York Times or listen to Rachel Maddow.  You don’t help in hating him.

Listen to Rush Limbaugh for a few days, as I did recently. Limbaugh is Trump’s guide and seer, his mentor, and his inspiration. He is the soul of Trump, his target audience, his alter ego and face in the mirror.

They are both angry old white men similar in age who came up in the same generation. They share a sense of grievance, cynicism, and suspicion of government that can be poisonous, and anything young people are doing.

They believe they can take us back to another time when white men ruled unchallenged and unhindered, and the world made sense to them. As upsetting as the President can be, and as powerful, that’s not going to happen.

It’s way too late.

Limbaugh and Trump are bonded in hatred over the changes in America in the last generation or two – strong women, people of color, refugees and immigrants, gays and transgender people, an independent and entrenched federal bureaucracy.

Cuomo came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, he is of another generation, he grew up in a different world, watching his master politician father rule New York State for three terms.

In one sense, I see Trumpism as a White Men’s Revolution, not a populist movement. It is built on anger and resentment over displacement, not on a desire to help working people unless one equates them as being the same thing.

Cuomo is operating for rational government, based on trained professionals, and clinging to the middle of the road. He doesn’t yell at reporters who ask him tough questions. He quietly says he just doesn’t want to answer them. No hard feelings.

Most of all, Trumpism preaches hatred of the people they have branded as “elitists,” or “socialists” or “traitors” or as otherwise not “American.”

This is not a “liberal’ point of view; it is the documented demographic of the nation and their own words.

As powerful as this angry revolution is, I take a longer view. There is no going back. Governor Cuomo sees this; clearly, I believe he understands history well enough to be on the right side of it.

He invokes this new America all the time; New York City is one of the capitols of the modern world. He wants to be a part of it, not an enemy of this new kind of country. He doesn’t rail at the foreigners who brought us the virus, or fight to slam the door, he explains that New York City, which he thinks of as the capitol of the world, will always attract foreigners, and should.

That is it’s magic and power, lots of different people, lots of different colors and beliefs. New York Love, he calls it.

These grumpy older men do not rage out of hate – they are practical, fluid in their beliefs, willing to turn on a dime – but out of practicality, not conscience.

They are the kind of men who smoke cigars in darkened rooms and mutter about young people today, brash gays,  pushy women and shifty Mexicans.

Limbaugh – there is absolutely no space between him and the President, they talk all the time – and Trump both need the same thing: people to blame, people to hate, the grievance machine runs 24/7, all through social media and cable news.

There is so much money to be made off of hate and grievance.

The far right today (the far left as well)  is hungry and greedy.

There is no day without outrage and grievance. Conservatism, once a respectable and thoughtful way of looking at the world, has been consumed by this hunger for grievance. Conservatism just isn’t blood-thirsty enough;

It has to be fed every day, and more than once.

If people stop being angry, they begin to open up their minds and think. It is essential to keep the grievance pot boiling. Anger and grievance is their diesel fuel. The politicians of the left do the same thing. They try to keep their followers angry and disturbed.

People, where I live, have taken the bait, they believe the Democratic party is to blame for every bad thing that has happened to them, from their lost jobs to a conspiracy to bring the dread socialism to America and take the rest of their dwindling freedoms away.

Urban people, by and large, have taken a different kind of bait.

Andrew Cuomo does well on the tightrope. Unlike President Trump, he welcomes Republicans and conservatives into his orb. He always shoots for the middle, he is always trying to grow his base. The President is always trying to keep it the same.

It is clear now that the gun movement is not just about guns, but about grievance, politics, and corporate money – here they are, taking more away from us.

I’ve enjoyed talking with the gun owners I’ve met up here. Almost every one of them has no problem with some sort of background checks or the banning of combat weapons without a license.

Yet it doesn’t happen, and the death toll rises and rises. It’s not about guns; it’s about grievance and lobbyists with money.

Cuomo, not generally known as likable or empathetic, has either transformed himself or revealed himself, I don’t know which is true. A friend of mine wrote to say Cuomo has embraced a Taoist response to Trump, at least until the last month or so.

The path to Taoism, it is written, is about accepting oneself and finding inner peace and confidence.

Unwittingly, I captured this the other day.

“Governor Cuomo seems to have figured this out. If he’s loud, you’re soft; if he is vicious, you are gentle, if he is lying or stretching the truth, you are painfully honest, if he can’t show empathy, you are empathizing all the time, even in tears…”

That is the essence of Taoism; it turns out. Cuomo stays within himself, he rarely bites.

President Trump sees government as intensely personal: how popular is he? How will it affect his booming economy? How does it make him look? He no longer even pretends to care about any citizens other than his most loyal supporters.

Cuomo is stubbornly unemotional, even while constantly evoking emotion.

This all leaves the President especially vulnerable to a Cuomo, a throwback in many ways, to the old politics of the more centrist Democratic Party.

Cuomo is not afraid to upset either political extreme. He pushed through the most stringent gun control law in the country and rejected the significant and expensive spending proposals of the party’s activist left-wing.

He goes back and forth, but he mostly governs through the middle. Trump governs almost exclusively from the far right. No politician in my lifetime has been more contemptuous of his political opponents than Trump.

Cuomo is a younger, more soft-spoken, ethnic family man; he can barely open his mouth without evoking his mother, his father, his brother, or his daughters.

He has his father’s gift for evoking St. Francis while chopping an opponent’s head off in almost the same breath. He is careful to be honest where Trump is hyperbolic or outright lying, and he is an organization geek, obsessed with how government and its systems work.

He comes across as a practical family man, not an ideologue, that is perhaps the perfect political positioning for 2020. He is the King of Facts, not rhetoric; people are getting worn down by bombast and rhetoric.

As the distance between him and Trump widens, both men’s anger and distaste for one another begins to show. It is no longer useful for either man to pretend to like the other.

The two are circling one another like wolves over a carcass. Only we are the carcass.

Cuomo believes the government is a force for good and seems sincere in his determination to save and protect lives and take responsibility for making people safe. The President is openly contemptuous of those values, government, a “deep state” conspiracy to do him in.

President Trump either doesn’t know how to see government as something good or doesn’t want to. It becomes more apparent to people every day what a government can mean – and isn’t. In a Pandemic year, it makes him vulnerable.

His positioning is smart and straightforward: Absolute authority, no responsibility, suggested the New Yorker Magazine.

Neither politician seeks the approval of the whole country. The battle is for independent-minded people and the dwindling political center – like many of the people and me reading this blog today. They will decide who wins in November. Everybody else is locked in place.

I am no pundit, I have no crystal poll and pay little attention to polls. They also can smother thought and reasoning.

I sense that many people, Republicans included, are sick of Trump and his tweeting and drama and bullshit. They would love a moderate Democratic alternative. His strengths are apparent,  his weakness more and more revealed as the Pandemic rolls along on its awful way.

It was inevitable that he and Cuomo would clash, and their battle can only intensify. The political struggle – Trump did this very much by design – now swirls over when and how to open up the country and get the economy moving.

The virus itself is the elephant in the room. If Trump opens up the country through his angry followers and obsequious governors, he risks a horrific backfire if the virus spreads and starts killing people again in high numbers.

Cuomo has staked out a different, but much more humanistic position. We must, upon up slowly, and only after universal testing. We have to save every life we can save.

We must fight for every citizen, even if they are very old, and even if it slows or damages normal life and the economy.

No fool himself, he is talking more and more about the need to open up. But in a very different and more cautious way than the President.

There is the moral issue of all the ethical problems bubbling at the heart of this collusion.

Many of the President’s supporters – clearly with his approval – are protesting, openly saying it is time to sacrifice the sickest and the elderly to preserve our economy and way of life, just as we would sacrifice soldiers in any war.

Cuomo so far has embraced the core of the Christian ethos – every life is precious; every life that can be saved should be saved.

I told Maria the other night that I am fortunate to be able to witness and write about such an epochal conflict centering on the heart and soul of this great country. And yes, it is undoubtedly worth coming out of my self-imposed retirement. It is the best of times; it is the worst of times, plus two.

It is good to be a writer, and a gift to have an audience. This spectacle is just getting underway.

 

19 Comments

  1. Your governor brings a needed level of sanity to us every day. I live in Minnesota which Trump wants to “liberate”. Fortunately we have an able governor here. I don’t always agree with your blog but you are doing a lot of good in your community. Stay well and listen to Maria.

  2. Thank you from the depths of my heart for this essay. I feel strongly about independent thought and try hard to grasp all perspectives. I have many friends from both sides of the spectrum. The divisiveness of our country hurts us all.

    1. “The two are circling one another like wolves over a carcass. Only we are the carcass.” Brilliant.
      Thank you for your very insightful and thoughtful comments.

  3. I needed your perspective. Thank you as always for your eloquence and groundedness. It is all fascinating to watch for sure.

  4. And I used to think politics was boring. Not anymore! Can’t wait to see what happens next between these two. Thanks Jon.

  5. No doubt, it is intriguing to see how each day of this pandemic unfolds. To be a good writer you have to get into the minds of both sides. After all, that’s what makes a good story. But in the end there is usually a winner and a loser. We are in the middle of the book right now! Cudos Jon, I have always been a fan of your writing because of the honesty in it.

  6. Great article. The president is unhinged. He is embarrassing to watch. I don’t even know why I tune in. It’s like taking a look at a car crash on the highway. You don’t want to see it, but still take a look. I know one thing, when I do tune in to one of his recaps. I’m never in a good mood after.

  7. Love reading your blog. I’ve been following you for years. Thanks for writing. I’m in the suburbs of Chicago and we are lucky to have a caring governor for our state. I work with a few Trump supporters and thanks to your analyses the other day, I finally understand why. I appreciate it. I never understood why they didn’t see the uncaring person they voted for. It makes sense now. Keep up the fabulous writing. PLUS – I took you up on the pen pal offer and have sent Barbara at the Mansion a couple of letters. I hope they bring a smile to her face. I plan on writing her again next week. Thanks again!

  8. Thoughtful analysis, that has forced me to think – which is exactly what good journalism should do.
    Thank you

  9. Jon, thank you. I have coffee with you, and also Maria, daily. This has kept me more calm and grounded for quite a while now, and I feel more informed. You see and explain the nuance between people and opinions better than most others. I need to see what other “sides” think and why. And these recent political pieces so often are brilliant. And thank you for sharing your life and animals with all of us! Good health and peace to you both!

  10. Thank you. Your writing on this subject is helping me to try to understand, for instance, other neighbors in my senior apartment complex here in PA who steadfastly refuse to follow the rules and guidelines and therefore endanger not only themselves, but more importantly, all of their other neighbors. I have to work so hard each day to not be in a constant state of anger at them (and others in the larger world like them). You voice many things I have in mind watching so much of this — and I’ve shared some of these writings b/c I do believe like others commenting here that you are presenting a viewpoint that is very difficult to access in these times. Again, thank you for your writing and your heart.

  11. Good morning Jon, interesting post today. I have been following the Cuomo/Trump exchange as well. I’m curious to see how the Democratic Party might use Cuomo’s “New York Tough” and painfully smart, lawyer debate skill set in our upcoming presidential race. Cuomo brilliantly runs rings around Trump. Doesn’t stumble. You me too “ Many of the President’s supporters – clearly with his approval – are protesting, openly saying it is time to sacrifice the sickest and the elderly to preserve our economy and way of life, just as we would sacrifice soldiers in any way.” That remind me of Hitler’s Nazism.

  12. I happened across your blog by chance and am enjoying the reads. You make me think. You writing is straightforward and your own. Honest. Thank you.

  13. No wonder I keep coming back day after day, year after year!! Smart, analytical, thoughtful, wise. Thank you for your sharp, as always, perspective!! Well written. Always. What a pleasure it is to read your words. Thank you Jon!

  14. Welcome back, Jon The Writer. Your “column” is balanced, insightful, provocative, and well-timed. This thoughtful writing is just what the doctor ordered—along with masks and social distance!
    Thank you for engaging…..I’ve been waiting.

  15. The TrumpCuomo piece was a good essay. I would like to believe what you say, because I tend to agree. I read some of your other posts and from what I can tell you are a genuine good guy doing very good things. But….I must admit that you confuse me a bit. Your piece has gone viral, which is where I originally saw it. So, I went to your blog and then things got complex. You say that you analyze and you state that Fox and msnbc are problematic without analyzing that statement and showing why except to put Fox down. Analysis? What’s your analysis of msnbc? To me you sound just like msnbc. They are, at least, honest if not clear about their tendenz Your “analysis” is totally consistent with msnbc’s take on Trump and you are more tendentious about Cuomo than they have been, suggesting that he be the next President. The viral email I received was from and to diehard Democrats and left leaning folks. Your claim of impartiality (which I see as tantamount to analysis) must speak to my never-Trumpist communicators. Why, then, would they send it? There are two concerns: 1. the glib dismissal of Fox (not so much, and) msnbc and 2. the questionable balanced analysis that you claim. There may be two other concerns. One is that it may be that any rational analysis of Trump is going to be, logically and naturally, grossly negative. So you kind of win both ways. Clever! The other is that in your goodness, you don’t give Trump even a small percentage of what he deserves. Thomas Mann (Nobel Prize and ultimately a liberal) said “Everything is politics.”

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