Don’t give Democrats too much credit on Cuomo’s resignation

New York’s disgraced Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is resigning. In large part, that’s thanks to pressure from Democratic politicians inside and outside of New York. The Democrats who called on Cuomo to resign deserve a little bit of credit. In fact, those who took actual steps to drive him out of office, such as state lawmakers who advanced his impeachment, deserve significant credit.

But liberals are going overboard in praising the Democrats as a party and drawing a contrast with Republicans.

Most Democrats supported Cuomo right up until the moment he resigned. Countless Democratic power brokers intentionally withheld the damning information they had about Cuomo for years — right up until Cuomo was already mortally wounded. The vultures don’t get credit for the kill.

Start with the rank of file of the party. Ask Benjamin Parker at the Bulwark and he’ll tell you “the Democrats are a political party, while the Republicans are a personality cult.”

Yet as of Aug. 9, well after the Office of the New York State Attorney General produced its report documenting clear and convincing allegations of Cuomo’s skeevy and consistent sexual predation, Democrats in New York approved of this predator who had by then been caught fudging the data to cover up his own murderous pandemic policy by a massive 57% to 37%.

Then there are the party elites.

Check out this magazine article published the same day Cuomo resigned: Cuomo called the Obama White House, instructing them to interfere with the investigations of United States Attorney Preet Bharara into New York state political corruption. That’s a bad and corrupt thing to do. And guess who knew that he did that? White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She took the phone calls.

Guess what Jarrett spent the next seven years doing? Praising Cuomo and defending him in public.

Add in all the mayoral staff, the state lawmakers, the CNN journalists, and other Democratic insiders who knew about Cuomo’s malfeasance, and you realize that hundreds of Democrats in Albany and New York City were covering for him, right up until the point when they couldn’t afford to do it anymore. Once Cuomo’s lifeless political corpse was sprawled out before them on the table, Democrats finally spoke the truth.

So right now, you need to ask yourself this question: Who else is out there abusing staff, harassing women, fudging numbers, mishandling a state, all in the open view of the Democratic Party elite, and yet getting cover for it by Democrats and the media because he or she is a powerful Democrat still of use?

“While we don’t know how many sexual predators the media is covering for at the moment,” Kylee Zempel wrote at the Federalist, “we know without a doubt there are other Democrat governors and bureaucrats who instituted the same murderous nursing home mandates. They’re still in power, shielded by a media that puffs itself up as a brave class of warriors willing to “speak truth to power.”

“WHAT ABOUT TRUMP?!” is the most common response you’ll get when you point out this embarrassing history of Democrats covering up for Cuomo. And yes, the Republican rank and file and most of the leadership have absolutely disgraced themselves in order to defend, suck up to, and appease Donald Trump, no matter what he does. But Trump vs. Cuomo isn’t the right comparison. That would be Trump vs. Bill Clinton.

And there, you see that when everything was on the line, specifically the White House, Democrats once again did everything in their power to protect a sexual predator from scrutiny and consequences of his actions. Clinton’s sexual predations were ignored or excused, his victims vilified, while his perjury and abuse of power were waved away as insignificant. Clinton enjoyed “Rock Star” status in the party and in the news media up until at least 2016, much like Trump would later.

So if you want to do a competition about which party is better at throwing out its corruptocrats and creeps, it’s doubtful that Democrats would come out on top. If they did, it would only be because the bar is so low.