Tradition can either be anchor or chain. Sensible (self-aware) people select which forms of tradition to keep, which to innovate on, and which to throw in the trash on the basis of this fact. The problem is that there are not too many self-aware people around, and very seldom are they found in positions of leadership.
Cuomo has demonstrated his capacity for leadership. He should be given the highest job in the land. Because just now, America desperately needs the leadership mettle that he has demonstrated. Covid like most pandemics are game-changers. Things can never go back to business as usual, unless the human population is ready for imminent extinction.
Powerful nations now need powerful leaders because much more than the fate of their individual nations may rest on their shoulders. The destiny of nations are now inextricably intertwined. A clown at the controls may not just be a national embarrassment… it could easily become a global catastrophe.
The rest of the world had best pray that the American people wake up and reclaim their country from the oligarchs. Laughing after a nation whose politicians make fools of their people, or hating on a nation for their manifest stupidity not only serves no good purpose, it occludes the fact that if America’s great ship of state goes down with its precious cargo, it is distinctly likely to take others down with it. And if nothing else is learned from history, since we are speaking about traditions, whenever change comes too suddenly and too fast, it is likely to deliver nothing but chaos; like a botched childbirth, both mother and child can die.
When it still can be a matter of argument whether or not America has handled the Covid crisis brilliantly, when its confirmed cases are at 1.5 million, with the next worst case of the outbreak Russia only registers barely 250,000; it demonstrates how politically mesmerized its populace has become. (And the core of that mesmerism is religious in nature).
The vicious political divisiveness is unprecedented. Neither Bush, McCain nor Romney would or even could stir up such venom and deciet. Yet the real threat to mankind in a post covid world hinges not on how some Supreme Court Justice votes on social policy issues. Without intending to minimalize those issues, men have been having sex with men and women have been aborting babies from our earliest civilizations and none of that threatened the ecology of the planet, regardless of whatever stories inform people’s morality.
The rules and traditions concerning how the American people select their president may be set in stone. Stones can be broken. Ask Moses….or any American president since Washington. Let us hope that this upcoming election is not about party champions or political sentimentalities, but actually focuses attention on what the American people and its government have not overly concerned themselves with for some time now…..not charisma, not political calculus, not visionary capacity, but actual leadership competence.
Cuomo for president!
YeKengalé 