Why Cuomo resigned and Trump didn’t

Beset with allegations of sexual harassment and different scandals, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced Tuesday that he would resign his workplace later this month.

“One of the best ways I can assist now’s if I step apart and let authorities get again to governing,” Cuomo mentioned in a press convention. “And subsequently that’s what I’ll do.”

Up up to now, Cuomo had appeared defiant. He’d argued that the worst allegations towards him had been merely false, and that he had an old style behavior of touching individuals with out sexual intent that was being misconstrued. What modified?

Cuomo’s turnabout seemingly isn’t because of a sudden outbreak of conscience, however somewhat a choice borne of self-interest. With solely two choices seemingly remaining — an unsightly, months-long impeachment ending in his elimination, or fast resignation — he picked the latter.

The important thing right here was that looming impeachment. Cuomo appears to have initially held onto hope that he may beat again impeachment in New York’s state legislature in some way — and, certainly, he’d stalled motion there for a number of months since these scandals surfaced earlier this 12 months. However actually, legislators had been ready for a report from the workplace of New York’s lawyer normal, Letitia James, on Cuomo’s conduct.

That report, launched final week, detailed allegations from 11 ladies, overlaying conduct starting from undesirable kissing and touching to inappropriate feedback. One state worker claimed Cuomo groped her breast, whereas others described the governor telling intercourse jokes, commenting on how they seemed, or touching them.

After the report’s launch, main Democrats mentioned Cuomo needed to go. New York’s whole Democratic congressional delegation known as on him to resign, as did nationwide Democratic leaders like President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Longtime allies in state politics deserted him too, from unions to state legislature powerbrokers. A majority of legislators within the state meeting went on file supporting his impeachment. Voters rejected him too — a Quinnipiac ballot discovered that 70 % of New York voters wished Cuomo to stop.

The writing on the wall turned clear — he couldn’t win. Moreover, a conviction in his impeachment trial may have banned him from holding state workplace sooner or later. So now, he hopes, he’ll keep away from that trial altogether.

Workplace of the Governor of New York through AP

The broader level is that scandal-plagued politicians typically don’t resign due to disgrace or docility, however as a result of they’ve concluded that leaving workplace voluntarily is the least dangerous, most face-saving choice for them personally.

Whereas Cuomo was defying requires his resignation, he was ceaselessly in comparison with former President Donald Trump, who did the identical. However the important thing distinction is that, even at Trump’s lowest moments — the blizzard of sexual harassment and assault accusations towards him in October 2016, the scandal over his firing of FBI director James Comey, or both of his impeachments — many Republicans nonetheless stood by him. So Trump calculated, rationally and appropriately, that he may survive these scandals, and even impeachment (as he twice did).

Why did Republicans stick to Trump all through all this? A part of the reason being that his distinctive personalised attraction to the GOP base made elites afraid to cross him. Regardless of Cuomo’s profitable run in state politics, he had no comparable cult of character amongst abnormal voters. Many feared to cross Cuomo for a few years, however as soon as he was badly wounded — by this and different scandals, like that over the dealing with of knowledge on Covid-19 deaths at New York nursing properties — he might be tossed apart.

Past that, Democrats merely had extra of a want to indicate they take sexual harassment allegations significantly within the MeToo period. Now, it’s not the case that each Democrat accused of harassment today will get tossed apart — there’s a rising consensus within the social gathering that such allegations have to be corroborated, even when that normal isn’t but uniformly utilized.

However final week’s report on Cuomo’s conduct from the state lawyer normal’s workplace served that objective of corroboration — it was obtained as as authoritative and damning. The social gathering didn’t need an accused groper with a sample of at-best demeaning and at-worst lecherous feedback as its standard-bearer. And, ultimately, that turned clear sufficient to Cuomo that he felt he had no different different however to stop.