Governor Andrew Cuomo Says Tearing Down Monuments Is Healthy Expression

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is like the gift that keeps giving. Because Democrats fell in love with him during the pandemic response, he keeps going on television to tell us just how insane Democrats generally are. And how willing they are to defer to the radical left, spewing pretzel logic to defend them.

Cuomo on tearing down statues: “It’s a healthy expression of people saying let’s get some priorities here and let’s remember the sin and mistake that this nation made and let’s not celebrate it." pic.twitter.com/u7uUEL6VJO

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 23, 2020

The first video is bad enough. The COVID-19 impact on older adults was present in the outbreaks from both China and Europe. It was one of the first pieces of data we learned about how the virus impacted society.

This is the second time Cuomo has tried to blame his disastrous nursing home debacle on the federal government. When first confronted, he said his policy followed the CDC guidelines. The order had been removed from the state’s website when he made this claim. Even Politifact rated his assertion as ‘Mostly False.’

The second video is excellent. Savannah Guthrie asked Cuomo how he wanted to respond to the president’s comments that mayors and governors needed to do more to stop the destruction of monuments.

He immediately pivoted to the removal of a monument to Teddy Roosevelt from the front of the Museum of Natural History. While still a ridiculous move, the museum has decided to do this in an orderly fashion. There can even be hope it will be placed inside a museum or otherwise stored until we can face our history again.

President Trump was talking about rioters destroying monuments nationwide. Not decisions by institutions and governments to remove monuments in an official or orderly way. No matter how ill-advised these decisions are. Maybe all of these virtue-signaling leaders should listen to this young woman from Venezuela. In short, it leads to nothing good.

One great question for Cuomo would be, what sin and mistake? The statue of Teddy Roosevelt is flanked by a black man and a Native American in a full headdress. Roosevelt himself is riding a horse. The prevailing wisdom is that this is racist and colonialist or something.

First, Teddy Roosevelt was not known to be racist. He developed a relationship with former slave and educator Booker T. Washington. He invited Washington to the White House to dine, and it turned into quite a scandal. According to NPR:

News of the dinner between a former slave and the president of the United States became a national sensation. The subject of inflammatory articles and cartoons, it shifted the national conversation around race at the time.

Likewise, a dedicated conservationist, he looked to preserve the wilds of the west by establishing the National Park system and has no record of mistreating the Native American population.

Did Cuomo and the Museum of Natural History forget how Teddy Roosevelt came to prominence? He led the first volunteer cavalry during the Spanish-American War. The unit was called the Rough Riders, and they rode horses.

So maybe an artist envisioned a man who rode to national prominence on the back of a horse and endeavored to bring others along through his friendship with Washington and conservation efforts. Crazy thought, but the left is not very good at nuance or history right now. It would seem Roosevelt’s accomplishments in these areas should be celebrated. Maybe that’s why he had a monument.

Cuomo never directly answered Guthrie’s question, but from his response, one has to infer that the removal of monuments by any method is ‘healthy expression.’ Perhaps he would like to cede the island of Manhattan back to the Lenape tribe and let them keep the 60 guilders. You know, because of sins and mistakes. It’s about time someone addressed the sin of imperialism, and Cuomo may be just the man to do it.

Thank goodness, not every governor in the country rolls over on our history.