This year we seem to have a penchant for Bullies.
The political rhetoric is abundant with calls for torture, waterboarding, carpet bombing and any other use of extreme and, perhaps unlawful, force against America’s enemies.
Actual violence has even broken out at some political events.
At a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama a Black Lives Matter protester was beaten and ejected from a Trump Rally. Asked to comment on it, Trump opined that “Maybe he should have been roughed up.” The following month at a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump said he would like “punch in the face” a protester that was escorted out of his event.
Trump’s rhetoric encouraging such mob violence has been escalating since earlier events held in other locales such as his Miami Doral Resort. No one should be surprised at these turn of events since Trump has used bullying language to insult Mexicans, Muslims and the Disabled.
Trump, however, is not the only bully on the political stage.
Governor Andrew Cuomo is not above using bullying tactics to upstage his perceived rivals and those who disagree with him on public policy.
One would have thought that Cuomo and New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, would have been natural partners, both having served in the Bill Clinton Administration. Yet the Mayor was barely in office when Cuomo undercut his State legislative agenda which included tax abatement for affordable housing and a renewal of mayoral control over the New York City schools. The Mayor commenting on Cuomo’s actions said that “if someone disagrees with him openly, some kind of revenge or vendetta follows.”
No one knows that better than Syracuse Mayor, Stephanie Miner, who was on the staff of Governor Mario Cuomo.
When Cuomo proposed that municipalities could defer pension payments into the future to avoid borrowing and balance their budgets, Mayor Miner wrote a well-reasoned op-ed piece in the New York Times disagreeing with the wisdom of the plan. Time proved Mayor Miner right.
Since that article appeared the Governor rejected providing any assistance to help Syracuse repair its aged and crumbling water pipes, responding; “Fix your own pipes.” Apparently he believe the money would be better spent on a lake side amphitheater on Onondaga Lake or building a new football stadium for Syracuse University, a private educational institution.
Indeed the Governor has expressed his pique by refusing to set foot inside the city in all of his visits to Central New York since the article appeared. It leads one to wonder whether he is intent on setting a new standard for pettiness or is simply geographically challenged.
In the end these two bullies have two thing in common.
First is that they inherited highly recognizable names from their fathers.
Second, is that if they hadn’t been born with those names, they would both be homeless.