Andrew Cuomo and American Exceptionalism The country that never stopped being great. James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/andrew-cuomo-and-american-exceptionalism-1534451407
A potential contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President appears to have just disqualified himself. If he hasn’t, it suggests that the U.S. educational system is in worse shape than many Americans realize.
Politico reports:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted Donald Trump during a bill-signing ceremony on Wednesday, twisting the president’s signature slogan as he made a point about the need for greater women’s equality.
“We’re not going to make America great again — it was never that great,” said Cuomo, a Democrat seeking a third term. “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.”
Mr. Cuomo’s press secretary Dani Lever attempts to clarify in a press release:
The Governor believes America is great and that her full greatness will be fully realized when every man, woman, and child has full equality. America has not yet reached its maximum potential.
As Ms. Lever elaborates, her message seems to sound more and more like her boss’ original statement:
When the President speaks about making America great again – going back in time – he ignores the pain so many endured and that we suffered from slavery, discrimination, segregation, sexism and marginalized women’s contributions.
The New York Times for its part notes the irony in Mr. Cuomo’s attack on the President’s signature campaign slogan:
In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo, who is facing a primary challenge from his Democratic rival, Cynthia Nixon, explained that he saw Mr. Trump’s slogan as backward looking.
“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, it’s retrospective,” Mr. Cuomo said. “When do you want to go back to, Mr. President? What was the great time that you want to take us back to, when America was great?”
…The governor’s dislike of “retrospective” slogans is relatively new.
When he ran for governor in 2010, Mr. Cuomo said in his announcement video, “Together, we can make New York great again.”
This column disagrees with the President, who believes that at some point America stopped being great, and with Gov. Cuomo, who fails to credit America’s massive contributions to liberty and prosperity. CONTINUE AT SITE
Comments are closed.
