From the first, I was fascinated by the contrast in culture,  style, and ethics between Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump, two strong men with loyal followings and great success in politics.

I had no idea at the time that each represented the idea of Greek Tragedy, just in different ways.

One was a fraud who became King, the other a King who became a fraud. Both suffer from hubris, which is bringing down one of them and will inevitably destroy the other.

On the surface, Andrew Cuomo seemed to possess the better qualities of men – he was compassionate, strong, honest, and protective.

Donald Trump, on the other hand,  embodied the worst qualities of men – he was predatory, bullying, dishonest and incompetent.

He is a cultural and political alchemist, a Merlin; he spins his straw into gold.

All over America, leader-starved citizens in 2020 began to fantasize about President Cuomo, the honest and tough-talking leader who would tell us the truth, stick to the facts,  and guide us out of the wilderness.

He seemed the perfect person for the job.

We all knew Cuomo was not very nice, but so what? He was said to be ruthless, but in the age of Trump, the bar of moral conduct had been lowered so far down it was no longer even visible.

I wouldn’t have pegged Cuomo as a predator – all that folksy chatter about his mother and daughters and their boyfriends and dogs.

Cuomo was a politician, he came from a political family, he knew when to turn on the goo and when to go on CNN to love his little brother.

It isn’t just Trump followers that are gullible. We all want to believe, we all yearn for someone to believe in. Unfortunately, our Messiah has not arrived.

While Trump bungled the pandemic at every turn, Cuomo had taken it and turned it into a political opportunity. He was on everybody’s shortlist to run for President in 2024. It was clear that he knew what he was doing, and it was clear his opponent knew also.

Trump was not faring well in comparison, both were holding daily briefings, the two dueling reality shows were mesmerizing the country.

Trump started attacking Cuomo at every available opportunity. It is said that he opposed federal aid to cities and states because he didn’t want Cuomo to get any help from anyone.

Today, Cuomo’s dream has died; he chose the wrong political party. Democrats are lining up to demand he be held accountable.

It may be just, but it is a shame.

During the frightening first months of the pandemic,  Cuomo showed us the best side of government and politics, stepping in when we are overwhelmed and endangered.

His long-time nemesis, Donald Trump,  showed us the worst elements of politics – demagoguery, manipulation, a psychotic inability to be challenged, and an almost fascistic thirst for absolute power.

I was happy to say goodbye to Donald Trump, however long it takes for him to sputter out or step in his own poop. I am sorry to say goodbye to Andrew Cuomo, who has, as his enemy has, set himself on fire. They both have that in common too.

Perhaps the answer is that nasty men can’t make it work any longer in contemporary America.

I  wrote once or twice last year that these two iconic symbols of politics also had more in common than either one of them would care or dare to admit. They were both New Yorkers, came from powerful families, were spoiled brats. Neither one could bear to be challenged or criticized.

They claimed to respect women but did not. They were both willing to sidestep norms, integrity, and compassion when it suited them.

And what a Shakespearan drama the two of them offer us, the wild and once unimaginable swings in culture and politics and the different ways in which we respond to them as a nation.

Flirting inappropriately and suggestively with women wasn’t considered a crime until recently, it wasn’t considered at all.

Trump has gotten clean away with much worse things – even crimes against democracy  – than Cuomo has been accused of even attempting. If you can survive those Hollywood Tapes and inciting insurrection, you have magical powers.

Trump’s part of our political spectrum has forgiven him for them all – he hasn’t been “canceled.”  Cuomo’s world cannot and will not tolerate this.

This is what it means to live in a divided country. And I suppose, that is what means to be a Democrat.

Andrew Cuomo is fighting for his political life, and rightly so. Donald Trump is giving speeches to huge and cheering crowds in Orlando and setting himself up as the Don Corleone of the Republican Party.

His only new policy idea seems to be vengeance. The Republicans are getting to be just like Democrats. They are making the same mistake over and over again. Their policy is grievance, rage,  canceling, and pandering.

That has always been the fatal flaw of cults. They can’t change, adapt or re-consider themselves, they just flame out. Trump’s Grievance Campaign is not a winning formula, not in 2010, not now, not in 2024.

Trump may get the publicity, but Marjorie Taylor Greene, his favorite new congresswoman,  is their face.

How does one win this epic struggle over right and wrong? I say truth wins in the long run, every time.

Speaking personally, I am once again bewildered by the things powerful men do; it simply is beyond me to comprehend how Governor Cuomo, in 2017, at the height of the rising Me Too movement, could ask a young aide if she wanted to play Strip Poker on a plane, as he is alleged to have done.

Look what he got in exchange for throwing a lifetime of hard work away? Absolutely nothing, except hopefully, a good therapist.

Why would he tell young aide that he is open to relationships with women in their 20’s – she is a woman in her 20’s – and not grasp the very creepy and disturbing implications of a powerful man saying that to a young woman in his employ?

An aide in an assisted care facility where I volunteer was grateful to me for helping her family, and she kept texting me, saying how much she loved me.

There was no sexual or other inappropriate intent, she was just grateful, but I asked her to stop doing that.

It just didn’t feel right. If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right.

How could someone like Andrew Cuomo not grasp that what he was doing was wrong, even if he acted as a mentor, as he claims? The woman was not a college pal; she was a state employee who worked for him.

The best I can manage is a growing certainty that men’s power triggers some testosterone boost that overwhelms their ethics, honor, and common sense. This testosterone surge would overwhelm the body and the mind as well.

How else to explain Charlie Rose opening his apartment door in an open robe when female staffers on his show turned up at his apartment to meet with him?

I can’t explain it. No one has explained it to me.

I  know it’s an unpopular thing for me to say, but I feel sorry for Andrew Cuomo and for the women he put in such an awful position.

Cuomo is a big boy, and he deserves what he gets, but to see so promising and charismatic a political leader blow himself up in that way is a tragedy all of its own.

How brave these two young women must be to take him on when he is notorious for dirty street fighting and assaults on his critics and enemies. It must be awful to be them right now.

Not too long ago, I was suspicious of accusations like this made against powerful men.

I instinctively questioned these women’s motives, but more than that, I couldn’t fathom how powerful men could be so stupid as to harass, grope, even rape the women who worked with them and for them.

I’ve never done that, and no one I’ve ever worked with has done that. It always seemed wrong to me, and I didn’t need to take a course or attend a lecture to know that.

There is very little in the lives of men to take comfort from when it comes to Trump, and now Cuomo. And shame on him for betraying his own values and the high hopes so many people felt for him.

I suppose it counts for something that Cuomo isn’t accused of taking his penis out of his pants or masturbating in front of his victims, or grabbing their breasts or bragging about kissing them.

Or am I speaking too soon?

I will always be grateful to Andrew Cuomo for the way he took on the coronavirus tragedy in New York and told me the truth about it – or at least most of it. I can only speak for myself.

He deserves great credit for helping New York keep the pandemic from being a catastrophe.  He saved the city. He helped me understand the crisis and navigate it. Nobody else was.

Our elected leaders were lying cowards. They violated their oaths.  I learned from him what to feel and what to do.

I can’t ever forgive Donald Trump for the dishonest and unbelievably cruel way he dealt with the pandemic and inspired millions of people to dismiss and demean it.

He made it clear that he cared about nothing but his precious economy, while his legions of liars bragged about creating vaccines quickly, which he had little or nothing to do with.

Lies are just like the virus, they spread and multiply, but they die in the light.

If Cuomo wanted to learn from his Doppelganger, he would deny everything and attack the media for persecuting him. It has worked for Trump for years now. Cuomo is scrambling for the best deal he can find.

Outside of the Republican Party, things have changed. This isn’t 1850 any longer; women’s complaints can no longer be scoffed or bullied away. My country is changing, and I am pleased to change with it.

What Cuomo has done is very serious. He should resign. But there isn’t parity here. Trump killed a lot of people by blowing off the pandemic.

I believed Andrew Cuomo saved many lives with his toughness and candor, and he made the awful choices that had to be made, even if it is hard to justify them in hindsight.

Cuomo taught us what government could do in a crisis, while Trump taught us that lying in your country’s service can be profitable and politically expedient.

Nobody really wants to wear a mask, stay out of restaurants, or be socially distant from other people.

When your President tells you it’s okay to skip all that sissy stuff, only the strong-willed resist what we all wish to hear.

A leader doesn’t pander to the mob, he stands up to it. Cuomo, to his credit, did that.

I wrote a lot about these two men and I wrote admirably about Governor Cuomo, so I felt I needed to write about him again as his very promising career goes up in flames.

Two women have made very credible accusations of sexual harassment against him. The Attorney General of New York State, an ally of Cuomo’s, says he undercounted the covid-deaths in nursing homes by 50 percent.

Trump should never have been elected President after those Hollywood tapes, and Andrew Cuomo needs to go while he has a shred of dignity and honor left.

They both remind us that male humans, even the best of them, are a broken species, prone to violence, greed, and domination.

Some are coming to know it; some are coming to fight against knowing or accepting their new place in the world.  And day by day, they are earning the rejection and displacement that they feel.

Trump and Cuomo have yet one more thing in common. The future of our country, the future of its politics, the future of the world, depends on women taking power. That is the message to me.

Now that we’re not living in caves and hunting with spears, men can no longer protect us from the real dangers we face in the world – most importantly, the struggle of the world itself to survive. And the world can no longer afford the way men govern.

In 2020, women, black and white, decided our presidential election. In 2024, women will do it again.

As divided as we are, there is one thing almost every rational and objective person in America can see – Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo will not be on anybody’s ballot.