Before the coronavirus broke out, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had a 47 percent approval rating.
When he began to lock down the NY in March to fight the COVID War and was the big star on his daily TV press conferences, by 10 April, a poll conducted by FiveThirtyEight showed his approval rating surged to 79 percent. According to a Harvard/Northeastern/Rutgers poll, Cuomo’s approval rating is now around 75 percent, ranking him as one of the Top 5 governors in the country.
The survey also found that Americans, proud to march off to fight the COVID War, gave governors imposing the strictest lockdown measures the most favorable ratings, while those who reopened much of their states received the lowest ratings from their constituents.
So popular is Cuomo that earlier this month, the National Governor’s Association unanimously elected him as its leader… the first governor from New York to take the gavel in the club’s history… and last week, he was given a prime time slot on opening night to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
Required Reading?
Flush with confidence over his state being ranked #1 in coronavirus deaths (nearly three times more than California, whose population is double New York’s), instituting draconian Executive Orders that shut down the state’s economy, destroying thousands of businesses and millions of lives… and helped turn the once vibrant Manhattan into a ghost town, Governor Cuomo’s bragging rights soon will be published.
“American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic” is scheduled for a 13 October release according to the book’s publisher, Crown, an imprint of Random House Group.
It will be interesting to read how the author/governor writes about his decision in March to create what he erroneously anticipated would be the need for more hospital space by forcing coronavirus patients out of hospitals and into nursing homes. That order led to a spike in the spread of COVID-19 in multiple nursing homes and a subsequent rise in deaths.
For clues, one need only look at the way Governor Cuomo tried to cover his tracks last spring. He had his administration issue a report claiming the spread was due to nursing home staff members who were infected. He also claimed his order was based on shifting federal guidelines.
The fact remains that New York ranks second, just behind New Jersey, for the most deaths in nursing homes in the entire country. And New York’s true count is likely much higher as, unlike the vast majority of states, the Health Department under Governor Cuomo does not count those who contracted the virus in an elder care facility but died after being transferred to a hospital or other location.
Nick Langworthy, Chairman of the New State Republican Party, commented, “People are mourning the loss of loved ones, yet he’s [Cuomo] putting out a book declaring himself a bold, great leader.”
One of the book’s pre-publication excerpts reads, “The questions are what do you do with the fear and would you succumb to it. I would not allow the fear to control me. The fear kept my adrenaline high and that was a positive. But I would not let the fear be a negative, and I would not spread it. Fear is a virus also.”
TRENDPOST: Yes, “fear is a virus also,” and Cuomo, along with other politicians, have been on a constant “sell fear” bandwagon since the COVID War began, and, by the numbers, the masses march to his orders.
This is the second book Cuomo wrote in office. He was paid $783,000 by publisher HarperCollins to write his first one, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life”… which sold only 3,200 copies.
TRENDPOST: While Governor Cuomo has been bragging about his fighting the COVID War, with New York City still in various lockdown modes and crime spiking – shootings surged 177 percent in July – thousands of NYC residents have moved out of the city for the suburbs, upstate New York, and around the country… just as we had forecast in March.
FlatRate Moving reports the number of people moving outside the City was up 50 percent from mid-March to mid-August.
There was an over-100 percent increase in moves from NYC to Ulster County, home of the Trends Journal, which is located at the most historic four corners in America.
The owner of Elite Moving & Storing says the work has been continuous since Governor Cuomo began Phase 1 of his reopening strategy. “People are fleeing the city in droves.”
The Hartford Courant cites more than 16,000 New Yorkers switched official home locations to Connecticut since March, while United Van Lines and Mayflower report over 1,000 moves out of NYC during the same period. Some 45 percent of those moves have been to North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California.
And as we had forecast, this will have devastating effects on commercial real estate and apartment buildings not only in New York, but also in major cities across the country and in many nations.
The deeper countries fall into the “Greatest Depression,” the higher crime rates will rise and the greater the exodus to escape to safe harbors, be they other countries, states, or rural areas.
