The New Yorkest: Cuomo and a History of Greatness

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is heading toward his Aug. 29 debate with progressive challenger, Cynthia Nixon. After ducking Zephyr Teachout altogether four years ago, this year he’s agreed to one debate with the woman coming up on his left. But with a big lead in the polls less than a month out from the primary, the debate Cuomo wants to have is with President Trump since that deprives Nixon of the attention she needs while giving the governor claim to the “resistance” mantle.” But Cuomo stumbled Wednesday when he said during a speech that “America was never that great.” You could say that his “Summer of Hell,” another of his unforced verbal errors this year, has extended into the Fall.

Where did Cuomo get that line? He appears to have borrowed it from … himself.

Cuomo’s speech at the Democratic National Convention back in 2016 sounded eerily like his botched comments this week in Manhattan — except for the end.

The thrust of the speech is that Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan romanticizes an America’s history that’s, well, liberally littered with examples of disadvantaged groups being disadvantaged. The good old days were good if you were a white, Protestant male (in the middle class at least) and a lot less good for many others.

So, what specifically was Cuomo referring to?

READ PARTS of his 2016 and 2018 speeches, which I transcribed and annotated with links to relevant dates.

July 28, 2016

“When they sell fear — fear is not strength. Fear is weakness. And no matter how loud you yell, our America is never weak. Republicans say they want to make America great again. They say they want to take us back to the old days — the good old days. I want to know what good old days do they want to take us back to? Do they want to take us back to the Civil Rights Act [1964]? Do they want to take us back before minimum wage [1938] and worker protection laws [1970]?  Or do they want to take us back before Row v. Wade? [1973] Well, we have a different vision. We’re not going back. We’re going forward. They say, they say they want to make America greater than ever before. We say you haven’t seen anything yet. You watch what we’re going to do with America. You think America is great now. You think America is great now — imagine how great America can be when every child, rich and poor is fully educated to their God-given talents. …”

Aug 15, 2018

“He has it on his hat. Make America Great Again. What does that mean? We’re going to go back to a time when America was great. Right? Great again. The whole concept is retrospective. When do you want to go back to, Mr. President? What was the great time you want to take us back to, when America was great? Before the Environmental Protection movement [1972]? Before marriage equality [2011], when it was just a man and a woman? Before these new immigrants started to come [1960] across the border? And before the women’s equality movement? That’s when America was great, in his head. He wants to take us back to that point — when women had traditional roles. Just listen and watch and you will see where he is going. …

“Go back to when, Mr. President? What great days? But that’s what he’s doing …

“The simple point is, all this comes down to this: we’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women — 51 percent of our population — is gone and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution. When that happens, this nation is going to be taken even higher. Because we have not fully liberated the women in this country. And we will. And New York will lead the way. And watch New York rise. Thank you and God bless you.”

I ALSO MADE A MASH-UP VIDEO of the two speeches, so you can see and hear the similarities.

HISTORY OF GREATNESS

• 1777 — Women lose the right to vote in New York State.
  • Via LizLibrary.Org/Suffrage
    

• July 4, 1827 — ”Unrestricted” abolition of slavery takes effect in New York.
  • Via New York Times  and Columbia.edu
    

• July 13, 1863 — Draft riots begin in NYC. “Throughout the five days of the riot, thousands of people, mostly Irish mobs, terrorized and destroyed NYC. In addition to destroying homes and businesses, mobs specifically targeted African-Americans and the wealthy. Those who supported the abolitionist movement were also in danger.”
  • Via Baruch
    
• 1848  — “First Women’s Rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.”
  • Via LizLibrary.Org/Suffrage
    
• 1880 —  “New York State grants school suffrage to women.”
  • Via Rochester.edu
    
• June 1, 1927 — The New York Times reports on a deadly clash between Fascisti and Klan members near a Memorial Day parade in Queens. According to an NYPD official, the Klan “wore gowns [and] hoods over their faces almost completely hiding their identity.” One of the seven men “arrested in the near-riot of the parade” was Fred Trump, of 175-24 Devonshire Road, Jamaica.
  • Via New York Times h/t BoingBoing
    
• June 25, 1938 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed The Fair Labor Standards Act, which became effective on October 24, 1938.
  • Via DOL.gov
    
• March 12, 1945 — New York Gov. Thomas Dewey signs the first-in-the-nation law to ban “discriminating against job applicants and employees on the basis of race, religion, or creed.”
  • Via WNYC
    
• 1960 — Mexico accounted for only 576,000 of immigrants in the U.S., about 5.9 percent of the immigrant population here, according to MigrationPolicy.org. By 1980, that figure was 2,199,000 immigrants, representing 15.6 percent of the U.S. immigrant population. As of 2016, that figure was 11,564,000, representing 26.5 percent of the immigrant population here.
  • Via MigrationPolicy.org
• July 2, 1964 — President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act.
  • Via LOC.gov
• April 9, 1970 — New York State repeals a law prohibiting abortion. The bill narrowly passed the through the Assembly after George Michaels, a Democrat of Cayuga and Cortland counties, tearfully, stands up and announces he is changes his vote in order to support the bill. Later, Democrats refuse to support him for re-election.
  • Via New York Magazine and New York Times
    
• Dec. 2, 1970 — ”The U.S. Senate confirmed William Ruckelshaus as EPA’s first Administrator.” That date is considered the EPA’s birthday.
  • Via EPA.gov
    
• Dec. 29, 1970 — President Richard Nixon signs The Occupational Health and Safety Act.
  • Via OSHA.gov
    
• Jan. 22, 1973 — The Supreme Court announced their 7-2 decision in the Row v. Wade case, upholding the right to an abortion.
  • Via Oyez.org
    
• Dec. 20, 1984 — The New York State Court of Appeals “reversed two centuries of legal tradition and struck down New York’s ‘’marital rape exemption.’’ No longer, the Court of Appeals held, will married men be exempted from prosecutions for acts done with their wives, which, if committed by strangers, could constitute rape or sodomy.”
  • Via New York Times
    
• June 24, 2011 — New York State passes law legalizing same-sex marriage.
  • See Cuomo’s Flickr feed
    
• March 16, 2014 — ”New York has the most segregated schools in the country,” according to a report from the Civil Rights Project, at UCLA.
  • Via CivilRightsProject.UCLA.Edu