Portraits of Misery: Cuomo, Trump, Biden

He reminds me of our Lord in Holy Week: Palm Sunday he is the king; Good Friday he is the goat. Last year Andrew Cuomo was the anti-Covid El Cid, the Not-Trump; now everyone, including his own, have turned on him. Since I like the underdog I will defend him. I can't fault him on the nursing home deaths: we were all flying blind at the time. Okay he fudged the numbers about deaths: they are only numbers, it is not like he was living in sin with his girlfriend or something. He seems to be more than a flirt: at best an aggressor, at worst a predator. He deserves his day in court. But even if the worst is true he is not in a league with Clinton, Trump, MLK and JFK...all of whom are widely lauded to this day. If we are to throw Andrew to the curb with the "me-too" lynch mob then we might consider reconfiguring MLK Day to "Black Women Matter Day?" Andrew is a crank, a bully, a fornicator but above all he is a genocidal sociopath: after passing his extreme abortion law, he lit up the skyline of Manhattan to celebrate. This is Herod the Great on steroids: Imagine him lighting up Bethlehem with Chrismas lights when the last of the under-2-year-old boys were slaughtered! HAis best trait is that he is genuine, sincere, transparent: he is a thoroughly miserable person. When he was being lauded last year for his covid conferences I was mesmerized by his face: frozen, sad, despairing. A blatantly, absolutely miserable man! Ironically, he shares this defining quality with his antagonist, The Donald. Both are utterly free of hypocrisy and pretense in their undisguised, shameless moral depravity. Neither make any pretense of virtue or goodness. Both are utterly bereft of humour, smiles, laughter, levity, self-depreciation, irony. Both are trapped in an impregnable, imprisioning EGO. OUr bishops have no worry about communion for Cuomo: he will not present himself. He is like the mob hit man questioned by his daughter on her first communion day as to why he did not receive. He answered: "Because I know who I am and I know where I am going." He is Tom Hanks in "The Road to Perdition" or the spiritually-dead Michael Corleone after he has destroyed his marriage and killed his brother Fredo. It is not that he is going to hell: it is that he is in hell, right now. That frozen face is empirial proof of the existence NOW of hell here on earth. But his autheniticity and consistency is so satisfying. He is like Darth Vadar when he make his first appearance in Star Wars: the music, the face, the voice, the physique, the costume...EVERYONE knew...this is a bad, bad, bad guy. Later however, in the prequel, we meet a far more troubling moral figure: Lord Papatine. On first appearance he is a pleasant, positive defender of democracy and peace. Actually, however, he is Lord Sidious, the Emperor, a morally evil actor far more depraved than his protege Vadar. It is his hypocricy, his deceit, his prension to virtue which is so winsome and deeply troubling. Here we face the contemporary reality of McCarrick, Maciel, Vanier, and more to our point...Joe Biden. In sharpest contrast to the Cuomo/Trump phenomemon, Biden is warm, smiling, charming, down-to-earth, pious, working class, social justice advocating. But underneath, he may exceed Cuomo in his abortion agenda. He is Herod the Great on the global level. But he is SO likeable. Unlike Sidous however, he seems to be indeliberate, clueless about himself. He thinks of himself as a good Catholic as he presents himself every Sunday for communion. He is self-deceived at a most profound level. And 50% of our Catholics have bought into that self-deception. It is a great sadness. I prefer the straightforward evil of Andrew Cuomo. Like Darth Vadar, there is some hope for him as he is so genuine and honest. Papatine and Biden are complete opposites in one way: the Sith Lord is preternaturally, really supernaturally intelligent and powerful; Biden is unnaturally stupid and obviously feeble. But he is SO annoying!