In today’s news, it seems that our beloved governor has become a published author with news released of his new book “American Crisis”, in which the governor details his decision-making and “leadership” over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Satirically called the “Memoirs of a Mass Murderer” for his involvement in leading nursing home residents to their demise, this book apparently will provide Cuomo’s purported “leadership advice” and will examine his relationship with the administration of President Donald Trump.
WGRZ has discussed that publisher named Crown stated that the book will be released on October 13 of this year, three weeks before election day. This news has come out the day after Cuomo addressed the Democratic National Convention and presented the virus as a weak metaphor for a country weakened by division-- when in reality, things are robust and this is pure sensationalism for the state of the virus and the country.
WGRZ goes onto present that the publisher has discussed that the book will contain “[Cuomo’s] personal reflections and decision-making that shaped his policy, and offers his frank accounting and assessment of his interactions with the federal government and the White House, as well as other state and local political and health officials.” Though the angle taken in this book is certainly a misrepresentation to portray our pompous governor in a much better light than he deserves, I’m sure there are grains of truth embedded within about the authenticity of State-Federal relations and the innerworkings of bureaucracy.
While I have a backlog of issues with how the governor has handled this whole situation for the state of New York (particularly in the past 4-5 months), I unironically want to get a copy of this book (perhaps there’s a bootleg version somewhere) to see what juicy contents are contained within. All likelihood has it that this is a fluff dime-novel written by a ghost writer as a means for Cuomo to turn a quick profit, but I’m nonetheless interested in seeing what is actually at play with this book.
I know he’s going to get a lot of shit for this, but I actually find it pretty admirable that he is releasing a book, even if I feel that he has done what I believe to be a purposefully poor job at handling the COVID health scare situation in his “killing-business-with-bureaucracy” approach. In fact, our President has released books in his past, and I feel that it is a very decentralized and powerful method of presenting our leaders’ rationales to people, while also allowing them a populist-friendly way of raising money personally, as opposed to raising money from contracts with firms that may otherwise endanger residents/citizens. It is my belief that going forward, politicians releasing books (during their administration, prior, and after) is going to be more of a macrotrend, and one I believe that we should support given that it allows individuals to interface directly with their politicians, and will likely, over the long-term, seek to bridge the gap between issues that politicians face, and issues that citizens face.
While I have no doubt that this book is likely a crock of pandering and bollocks, I think the act of even releasing a ghost-written book is a step in the right direction.