End of the Line for Cuomo

On today’s podcast, our hosts kick things off with a discussion about New York Gov. ...

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On today’s podcast, our hosts kick things off with a discussion about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who refuses to resign despite a damning sexual harassment report and calls from national Democrats, including President Biden, to step aside. They then dive into the CDC’s decision to extend the eviction moratorium again and debate the possibility of a federal vaccine mandate. Next, David talks about the right’s new obsession with Hungary and Viktor Orbán and how it mirrors the left’s fascination with Scandinavia. Finally, the gang discusses the recent dropoff in PAC contributions, and how the rise in small dollar donations may be contributing to American partisanship.

Show Notes:

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  1. GregS

    Would have been interesting to hear a bit about vaccination mandates for healthcare workers during the conversation on mandates for teachers.
    A lot of hospitals in Texas *just* started mandating vaccines (Houston Methodist was first off the blocks several months ago and fought off a lawsuit about it). Surprisingly high rate of resistance among the non-physician staff...

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    The Bell Tower

    The founders were “decidedly against Caesar.”

    George Washington sponsored a performance of his favorite play, “Cato: A Tragedy” for his troops at Valley Forge. When the hero, Cato, tried to commit suicide in defiance of Caesar, his attendants tried to save him.

    Instead, Cato ripped his own intestines out of his belly. When told of Caesar’s famous clemency, he declared:

    "Would he save Cato? Bid him spare his Country.

    Tell your Dictator this, and tell him Cato

    Disdain's a Life, which he has Power to offer."

    True story, BTW. So, yes. Against Caesar.

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    BW

    Preach Sarah!

    I’m a member of a union and we’ve been working through the whole pandemic. The teachers union has not only failed our children in 2020. They’ve also been an embarrassment to unions who’ve worked since this pandemic started, and have stepped up. They give unions a bad name.

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  4. Joe1776

    Great comment by Jonah Goldberg about every elected official taking an oath to uphold the constitution. That has been my view the whole time as well. I agree it was bad when Bush did it - and lead me to not be very motivated to vote for him - it was bad when Obama and Trump did it and it is bad now. No we shouldn't credit Biden for openly abusing his power. We should insist that every elected leader keep their oath to preserve the constitution.

    It saddens me that of the group only the non-lawyer is really upset by this. I know Sarah and David do not condone this behavior but they seem all to eager to say oh well the days when our government didn't abuse its power for various ends are long gone. Please consider holding all leaders to the standards most everyone else in our society lives by. Most Americans take oaths seriously. Let's maintain that expectation.

    As far as the right and the direction it is going I just don't know what you guyus are talking about. The talking points for conservative news seems very much to echo a concern of government censorship. The concerns are that the government is working with/ pressuring private companies to shut down free expression. For you guys to suggest that the new conservatives support more government censorship just seems contrary to the republicans I have been hearing from. Who are these guys that like Orban because he is monitoring the press and restricting speech? You mentioned Prager and Tucker Carlson. Are they supporting that?

    If anything I am glad American conservatives are going to Europe because American small government conservativism really doesn't exist there - and it should.

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  5. R. James

    Caesar was a lib. He owned the Conservatives...

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      Narwhal

      If I recall correctly, Caesar was aligned with the Populari; but, he was an opportunist most of all. He didn’t want to face prosecution, after giving up his proconsular authority and returning to civilian life, for crimes he clearly and flagrantly committed and so he crossed the Rubicon with a legion.

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    Bill McDavitt

    Dear Jonah and Steve,
    The thing about free business advice is that it's free. OK, so I'll throw in my 2-cents. Now what I'm about to say will be worth something! =)
    I think every new paid Dispatch subscriber, after receipt of payment, should receive an audio file of Jonah's voice right around the 1:07:37 mark. Maybe a little bit of editing would be needed, but it's a darn good summary of what the Dispatch is. The very first time I signed up, I was a little unclear about just what exactly I had signed up for. If Jonah's recorded explanation of the what and why of the Dispatch was sent to me in an email, that would have been A) very cool, B) very informative C) very helpful and D) likely would have led me to forward the email to friends, thereby spreading word of mouth advertising. Imagine someone who consumes a lot of Fox News and somehow, someway decides to pull the trigger on a Dispatch subscription and Jonah's explanation is what they are greeted with. I think it would open a lot of eyes for a lot of people.
    As always, great podcast, great insights, very grateful for all that Sarah, David, Steve and Jonah do. #StayAwesome y'all.

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    1. James D

      That's not a bad idea at all regarding getting the Dispatch's "mission statement" down in audio somewhere it can be shared easily! I hope Steve sees this.

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  7. Jon

    Double edge sword. Obviously Cuomo should go for what he did. Hands down not even a close call.

    But as a governor for the state of NY - he’s by far the sanest of all of the other nut job options the Democrats will put forward. While NY is not yet CA- it’s pretty close and doesn’t seem like the Republicans stand a chance this election cycle to regain control.

    Call this this the NY “Trump” call. Stick with the man who politically is the most tolerable but personally is marginally better than horse manure.

    Separately look forward to David and Sarah’s discussion on the eviction moratorium.

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    1. James D

      Cuomo beat down Nixon pretty hard in the last primary. New England states aren't very inclined towards fringe progressive governors; GOP governors are far more competitive in these states than the national party is.

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        Aylene Wright

        And if Cuomo resigns or is impeached/ removed, he will be succeeded by Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is actually seen as a moderate, and at this point NY politics watchers expect her to run for re-election for a full term. So it's not a binary choice between Cuomo and an AOC type.

        Spitzer and Paterson (the last resigned governor / lieutenant governor combo) weren't progressive either. Paterson wanted to run for a full term but eventually gave up. But then it was Cuomo who grabbed the ring. NY State is actually quite politically moderate outside NYC and the surrounding suburbs.

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          T.K. Small

          Patterson was lazy and not that bright… Despite going to and completing law school, he claimed the bar exam was too difficult due to his visual impairments. I am far more disabled than him, and I passed.

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  8. Joe in NYC

    Great pod as always, gang. Count me as one, though, who is not convinced that Andrew Cuomo cannot successfully (as he sees it) tough this out. He might be just that brazen and may still retain enough political leverage to pull it off. Attention spans are very short these days.

    BTW…for Sarah's benefit, I will attest (as will, I imagine, her husband) that Formula 1 drivers are formidable athletes, and that the physical and mental demands of their work are incredibly intense. So yeah, I think it definitely counts as a sport. Last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix was quite the thrilling race. Check out some F1 with your husband, you may dig it! Great reason to get up at dawn on Sunday for the TV coverage.

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      Aylene Wright

      ActBlue is cutting Cuomo off. So while he may manage to finish his term, very unlikely that he will run for re-election now. And there's precedent for the NY Dems blocking an incumbent Gov from running for re-election. They did it to Paterson to pave the way for ... Cuomo.

      https://mobile.twitter.com/lachlan/status/1423358509878583298

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    SD

    So I did listen after all. The discussion of Cuomo was perfect. I live in Albany and the sexual harassment allegations caught me by surprise because I had heard so many stories and a lot of gossip about Cuomo over the years, but nothing about sexual harassment. When the allegations first came out I thought that they could be true, but it also might be true that people were setting him up because he has burned so many people and a lot of people are out to get him.

    The schools discussion on The Dispatch is usually frustrating to me. It is a lot more complicated than the typical discussion on the podcast. I am not an educator, but have been following education issues closely since falling into the PTA president role at my kids' "persistently failing" school about 10 years ago. I do not think unions should be fighting vaccine mandates, but I don't understand the talk on the show that teachers "haven't been working." Pretty much every educator I know, from preschool to graduate school has said this has been the most difficult year in their teaching career, they have worked harder than they ever have but with less positive results, and they are tired. People are discussing leaving or retiring. In fact, yesterday a rumor started going around that our high school may not open for in-person in September due to lack of adequate staffing. I am sure there are employees that are afraid to go back or who aren't vaccinated, but they are a tiny minority in my district.

    I know parents in other parts of the country where maks mandates are not allowed and vaccination rates are low who are really struggling with what to do with their kids too young to be vaccinated. In South Carolina schools are being told that they cannot mandate masks, yet they will lose state funding if more than 5% of their students are virtual. Parents I know in Texas are much more reluctant to send their kids to school than they were last year, but are not sure what else they can do. Someone I know who is on a School Board received threats once she suggested that students might be required to have the COVID shot once it receives FDA approval.

    A ran into one of our school nurses last week who has taken on hours at a local hospital. She said that the district plans for going back are in constant flux, and she is waiting to hear more before she decides whether or not to leave the school nurse job (which she loved prior to the pandemic). Another school nurse I know who has a chronic health condition is also debating whether or not to go back in the fall. A university professor I had lunch with this weekend said that as of now her university is expecting classes to be "high flex" in the fall, meaning that she will have five in-person sessions over the semester and the rest will be remote. She said she is not sure she can survive another entire year in that job if it is mostly remote.

    I could go on and on because this topic is definitely top of mind in my circles. But suffice it to say that I find the Dispatch discussion on this topic to be simplistic, lacking nuance, and not really understanding of the extreme pressure educators have been under this year. Yes, almost everyone has been under pressure, but they have certainly been under more pressure than many other white-collar professions outside of health-related occupations.

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      Ellison

      There seems to be a deep seated disgust of all teachers unions in our hosts. It comes from their old territory and sits right next to all taxes are bad taxes and the only way to make governance better is to have less of it. Sometimes their biases are so strong they can't see around them even though they try.

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      1. James D

        I think I'm substantially to the left of any of the four of them (though I don't think you could call me any further left than a very moderate Democrat at the absolute most) but I'd agree with them about public-sector unions. Public sector unions are represented at both sides of the table & the taxpayer foots the bill. This is part of why New England, which has some of the bluest states in the country, still semi-regularly elects GOP governors on a platform of cutting wasteful spending at the state level; taxpayers in these states are very familiar with the endemic levels of public sector corruption and over-spending and are fed up with it.

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      2. Randall Briggs

        Not teachers' unions. Public employees' unions. There's an inherent wrongness about them, as when they collectively bargain, they are bargaining with people for whom remaining in office, or getting reelected, may depend on their goodwill. There's nobody at those bargaining sessions representing the people who pay the bills--the taxpayers.

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        1. DJ

          I dislike public employee unions but I also think we should be paying government employees a lot more in general. The Fifth Risk talks about how the median age for government workers is much higher than it was 30 years ago and I think that's in part because the most talented and ambitious young people perceive government as a dead end career. It doesn't have to be that way. In Singapore, public employees enjoy very high status and are well paid.

          IMO the absolute worst public unions are police unions, but no one on the right or left wants to do anything about them.

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          1. James D

            Yes, we do need to overhaul government salary structures to strongly deweight pensions/etc in favor of higher salaries to attract better talent.

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    2. Mathew A

      But then has the teachers unions resisted vaccines for teachers so much?

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        SD

        My city's unions have been quiet on this issue, but our city hasn't yet mandated vaccines for employees, so hard to say what their position is.

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    3. Randall Briggs

      I'm a non-union school teacher approaching the end of my 2nd career, after retiring from the Army in 1999. This past year has been a miserable experience. I teach in a bright-red suburb of a purplish city in a bright red state (with a 49% vaccination rate), and that suburb's civic leaders and school board are dominated by people with the "no vax, no mask, open up everything" mentality. That seems to be how they demonstrate fealty to Donald Trump. And if a few old teachers with co-morbidities die along the way, well, that's too bad. I too find The Dispatch to be a little cavalier on this subject. It is far more complicated than just a case of hypocritical teacher unions getting in the way of a return to normalcy.

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      Aylene Wright

      Re the teacher-bashing, I don't think that was the point. But it strikes me as slightly ironic that one of the TD staffers is married to a teacher and even mentioned on a prior podcast, how hard virtual schooling had been for her. Now I am not sure if Mrs. Egger works for a public or private school. But I certainly didn't get the feeling that actual rank and file teachers, public or private, saw virtual schooling as a welcome excuse for slacking off.

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        Aylene Wright

        PS: Just realized my last post was a tad unclear; it was Andrew who mentioned this on a podcast, not his wife. It must have been last fall because he mentioned how it was even more difficult for teachers to START a school year virtually with students who they'd never actually met, than to end one. It actually would have made for a good article without the obvious positive bias involved.

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    RandyMc

    I wish this had been a video/Zoom discussion. The facial expressions throughout had to be worth viewing.

    Love you guys.

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      Aylene Wright

      On a related note: are we ever having Dispatch Live events again? Or are they mothballed?

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