Andrew Cuomo Was the Poster Thug for the Sexual Revolution
Will Cuomo go to jail like Al Capone or O.J. Simpson for one of his lesser crimes?
It would have been fun to watch Andrew Cuomo fight impeachment, clinging to power by fair means and foul. The spectacle would have highlighted the incoherent, hysterical moralism of our cynical ruling class. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, elites claim vast, exalted rights for human beings, and pontificate about “justice.” On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends, the oligarchs treat people like lab rats or veal calves. We’re finding out even now about intact unborn babies with hearts still beating getting delivered to NIH-funded research labs. Thanks for greenlighting that, Dr. Fauci! It confirms our level of trust in you.
But alas, that impeachment is not to be. The governor who left empty beds on the USS Comfort and at Samaritan’s Purse, while dumping hundreds of COVID patients on helpless residents of nursing homes, killing thousands still uncounted (since his office refused to count them) is out of politics. And why? For getting what women used to euphemistically call “handsy” or “fresh.” In reality, his harassment of women employees was simply Cuomo acting on his real beliefs about human dignity, instead of the boilerplate Woke-speak he uses when the microphones are switched on.
Entitled Men, Gaslit Women
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was credibly accused of creating a “toxic workplace.” But actually, the Sexual Revolution created the “toxic workplace.” The Sexual Revolution, in effect, issued hunting licenses to predators. This poisonous ideology created a sense of entitlement among powerful men. They have internalized the Revolutionary message that they are entitled to have sex as often as they choose, with whomever they choose.
The New York Attorney General’s office issued a 165-page report last week charging that the governor “engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment.” The report also concluded that the governor’s office “contributed to the conditions that allowed sexual harassment to occur and persist.”
In other words, the harassment was systematic. The governor’s office enabled his misconduct.
A Generation of Addicts
The Sexual Revolution has given us a generation of addicts. How else can you describe Cuomo’s behavior? “Compulsive” seems too mild a term. Any attractive woman who came within his reach was fair game.
But it was the Sexual Revolution that led to a climate where so many powerful men are caught up in scandal. This toxic ideology led to a culture where powerful men can’t keep their hands to themselves.
Numerous politicians and entertainers have been credibly charged with harassment or even assault. President Bill Clinton was impeached for an affair with an intern who was decades his junior. Former U.S. Senator Al Franken was forced to resign from Congress. Harvey Weinstein fell from the pinnacle of Hollywood’s powerful elite to convicted sex offender.
Porn: A Training Program for Harassers
Pornography also plays a role in this problem of widespread sexual harassment and assault. The Sexual Revolution gave us the pornography-saturated culture in which we live today. A regular porn theme is that any woman is ready to have sex at any time with men she barely knows. Maggie Gallagher wrote about this way back in the late 1980s, in her classic Enemies of Eros. The Sexual Revolution enshrined as our cultural norm the urges of some 16-year-old boys. Much of the inchoate anger of subsequent feminism was a misguided reaction by women to that grotesque culture shift.
The Andrew Cuomo scandal ought not to end here. It could well result in criminal charges, even jailtime. The governor pontificated about saving his elderly mother, Matilda, while sentencing thousands of locked-in veterans and grandmas to death by COVID. He might finally meet some rough approximation of justice. Remember how Al Capone only went to prison for tax evasion, and O.J. Simpson for stealing sports memorabilia? (Better still, his own memorabilia!)
Before Cuomo disappears into the dustbin of history, we must confront the Sexual Revolution. The idea that sex is an entitlement will continue to create predators like Andrew Cuomo, regardless of what happens to the New York governor.
Nobody Cares About the Victims
Cuomo lit up the Empire State Building pink to celebrate legalizing partial-birth abortion in New York. Men like him will keep on legislating the Sexual Revolution. Neither the politicians nor the other Revolutionaries care about its costs.
Neither Cuomo nor self-proclaimed defenders of blacks worry that a higher percentage of black babies are aborted than born in New York City. Nor about the percentage of fatherless boys and girls that keeps right on spiking, with all the pain and chaos that often causes. Neither Cuomo nor the “feminists” seem upset that the Manhattan Planned Parenthood “clinic” has had 32 emergencies requiring ambulances over the past 5 years.
No, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution. And the Revolution is always about power. The Sexual Revolution is all about the power of adults to live only for themselves and to have the sexual fulfillment that Andrew Cuomo seized — with both hands.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is the author of The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies Are Destroying Lives. The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”