Like many, I knew it wouldn't last.
When the pandemic broke wide a year ago (I know, what is time, at this point), for New Yorkers events moved at a bewildering pace. And in the midst of madness, it was both surprising and relieving to discover that Andrew Cuomo was able to step forward, lay out clear information on where things stood, explain what state government was doing in response, and generally try to provide a sense of calm optimism that we could get through for as long as it took. It was a great show (heck it won an Emmy.)
It was also never going to last.
Cuomo's skillset is especially strong on crisis management, he's the ultimate in "I gotta guy" politics, hates unnecessary red tape, and is especially ruthless in getting his way. All very helpful when things are bad. When they're not, people tend to notice things like cronyism, excessive ruthlessness and... hey, what's that red tape hiding in that box over there? And that, as much as anything, goes a long way to explaining why what looked so bright and shiny six months ago, is looking damaged and on life support now.
At first blush, it seemed, and still seems to some that the big scandal is "nursing homes." It's clear that, from the beginning of the pandemic, New York tried hard to minimize the count of deaths in long term care facilities, apparently by (somewhat reasonably) suggesting that dying in a hospital is not dying in a nursing home. While there have been suggestions of "massive undercounting," the overall death toll in New York is quite accurate. It's just that nursing home patients who were taken to hospitals and died there, were not counted, at all, as nursing home resident deaths. Other states (mostly) did. Hence a somewhat large discrepancy.
Moreover, there has been considerable debate that a decision, early on, to release nursing home residents back to nursing homes after they recovered from life threatening conditions that sent them to hospitals, coupled with a policy of not sending residents to hospitals unless they needed life saving care, may have exposed more residents to Covid and contributed to additional deaths. That part of the story - heavily flogged by Fox and other Murdoch owned outlets - is driven in significant part by Janice Dean, Fox's chief meteorologist, whose in laws died in a nursing home in New York state, Dean though is not necessarily keen on making an especially fact based case (and Cuomo, for his part, is all too happy to attack Dean rather than mount a factual defense). And indeed, while several investigations are ongoing, the overall nursing home story is much more complicated. But... let's get back to Cuomo for a moment.
As I said, Cuomo has several problems, and the nursing home zealots have been flummoxed by additional scandals which have overtaken any nursing home issues and become the real driver of Cuomo's problems; namely, allegations from a number of women of predatory behavior and larger concerns about an especially toxic office environment in the state's executive branch. What began, seemingly, as a bit of a publicity stunt by Lindsay Boylan, running for Manhattan Borough President, offering up some vague allegations has morphed into a serious, damaging look at longstanding problems with Cuomo's management style.
Whether Cuomo can survive any or all of this is mostly unclear at this point - Cuomo's style has been to double down in the face of adversity and he's done that on all fronts... but with New York's leading democrats almost entirely aligned in calling for his resignation, investigations aplenty and an impeachment process starting in the Assembly... it's hard to see how this doesn't end, and soon. Cuomo has resorted mostly to hiding, or pandering to popular sentiments, but it's not clear he can smooth talk or smooth pander his way out of this. Given the moribund state of Republican party politics in the state, Democrats can hold onto power easily and put Cuomo behind them... but let this fester, and all bets are off.
Which leaves one to wonder how much of this current outrage is just Cuomo, and how much is other issues, whether state governance (losing Cuomo is just step 1 in cleaning up Albany's sleazy rep) or... well, that whole nursing home story. Because, to get back to that large messy issue - there's a much longer, much harder conversation to be had, should we get serious about it.
Because the fact is that a disease which was especially deadly for older folks was tailor made to rip through long term care facilities. Lest we forget, the first Covid mass death event was a Washington state nursing home.And that story was repeated, literally countless times, in every state in the country. To get a real sense of the horrific nature of this, loop in prisons -- the other "congregant care" facilities most states operate - and you have the epicenters of death across this pandemic. Should one want to raise this topic. Which, not surprisingly, almost no one does.
We could, in fact, go back and point out that "nursing homes" are in fact, a questionable approach to care to begin with. It's demonstrably clear that warehousing the elderly isn't a good solution for the elderly, or their families, or for the costs associated with care. It's also clear that, in scandal after scandal, states have failed to regulate, protect, or assure proper care in those settings. Oregon, in fact, this week reported that the state has failed, in the year of Covid to even try to address the obvious failures identified in the pandemic. And they are clearly not alone.
Of course, the conversation that results from looking into this is horrendous. And for any number of reasons - not least of which the fact that he served as Trump's main pandemic response foil - making Cuomo the sole issue in this story serves a lot of needs. It will be much harder to face up to, never mind actually deal with, even thinking about revamping the nursing home based approach to elder care. The same, only more so, for a better more humane approach to prisons. Why even start to look when... hey? did another woman just say Cuomo touched her?
And yes, Cuomo honestly makes all too easy - at best, he's been the placeholder for a better leader in New York state for nearly 12 years, and it's no wonder people are tired of putting up with so much bad for the occasional good. Sure, we've got a great safety net, great civil rights protections, gay marriage, and more coming down the pike. But nearly every New Yorker knows we could have all that, and better, without him. More to the point, though, the conversations we need to face - about how to deal with the next pandemic, starting a hard conversation about elder care, really drilling down on the prison problem... all of these will be harder to paper over if Cuomo is gone. So sure... he's gotta go. But be careful what you wish for... because the hard part is what comes after he's gone.
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