Recently, New York City has produced two "news hits": one is that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has once again made headlines - the media found that the former mayor landed on a "celebrity online blessing" website, as long as 199 US dollars, you can receive a private customized blessing video recorded by Giuliani, celebrities use this channel to earn extra money, which is about equivalent to actively declaring to join the "Past Paste Coffee Club" in American society; another big news in New York is that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned because of the sexual harassment scandal. After announcing his resignation, Cuomo walked to the helicopter in a daze and left the political arena for a while.
On August 10, 2021, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made a televised speech announcing his resignation. Earlier, Prosecutors in New York issued a report saying cuomo was suspected of sexually harassing multiple female colleagues and subordinates. (Image from Xinhuanet)
Cuomo and Giuliani, two New York politicians of Italian descent, have both become "New York heroes" at different times. Democratic New York Governor Cuomo performed far better than then-President Trump in the fight against the new crown epidemic, and the voice of "persuasion" from the people was everywhere; the Republican Mayor of New York Giuliani performed far better than then-President George W. Bush in responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and many people speculated that his next stop was the White House. The rise and fall of the two "New York heroes" seem to form a subtle intertextuality.
Giuliani: From "Mayor of America" to "Trump Lackey"
Giuliani's political career began in the prosecution. After earning his law degree, Giuliani started out in the New York District Attorney's Office and rose to fame in battles with New York gangsters and police corrupt elements. In the end, Giuliani, who overthrew the "godfathers" of Italy, used the district attorney general as a springboard to successfully run for mayor of New York in 1993, becoming the first Mayor of the "Deep Blue" (Democratic-leaning) city in decades to be republican.
During his eight-year term as mayor, Giuliani greatly improved the security situation in New York, increasing the police force, from shooting murder to street graffiti, directly reversing the urban atmosphere in New York. At that time, some people commented that New York changed from "Gotham" to "metropolis" in giuliani's hands (both are fictional cities in American literary works, the former alluding to the chaotic and uneven rich and poor side of New York, and the latter alluding to the technological development and economic prosperity of New York).
Giuliani when he was mayor. (China News Network Data Chart)
Toward the end of his mayoral term, Giuliani was hit by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At that time, President George W. Bush lost a lot of points in responding to the terrorist attack, and the media spread the blank expression on Bush's face when he learned of the impact, and bush, who was visiting Florida at the time, wandered in the air for nearly a whole day on the special plane "Air Force One" and returned to Washington in the evening, which was considered to be slow and weak.
In contrast, Giuliani appeared to be in danger. In front of the camera, Giuliani quickly arrived at the scene of the incident to direct disaster relief, coordinate relief activities from the state and federal governments in the areas where the World Trade Center collapsed, organize counterterrorism operations, and rescue destroyed public facilities.
In front of the camera, Giuliani calmly and accurately transmitted various important information to the people of the whole country, reminding New Yorkers of various secondary disasters that may be encountered in the next few days, and quickly dispelling rumors. Giuliani's popularity in 9/11 increased rapidly, and he was praised by oprah Winfrey, the "queen of talk shows", the "Mayor of the United States", the "British Empire Medal" by the Queen of The United Kingdom, and even became the "Person of the Year" selected by Time magazine in the United States in 2001.
In 2001, Giuliani became The Man of the Year for his eye-catching performance in 9/11 on the cover of Time magazine.
However, Giuliani's popularity had already declined before he officially stepped down. Giuliani asked the New York Legislature to make an exception by allowing him to extend his three-month mayoral term until April 2002 to better restore New York from 9/11. This claim has been accused of being in love with stack power and has not been agreed to. Subsequently, Giuliani participated in the Republican primary presidential election and lost everything in the party.
Giuliani once again came to the spotlight in 2018, as his old lawyer, joined the team of then-president Trump, responsible for dealing with the "Russia" investigation that Trump was undergoing at the time, as well as the private problems of Trump's derailment of vulgar film actresses.
▲ Giuliani and Trump. (China News Network Data Chart)
The relationship with Trump also completely discredited Giuliani. In 2019, the US media exposed a recording of a call showing Giuliani pressuring a senior Ukrainian official to investigate conspiracy theories about then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The call seemed to imply that U.S.-Ukraine relations would improve if such demands were met.
The incident also brought Giuliani on the cover of Time magazine again, with an article related to him titled "Rudy Giuliani fought corruption, but now he's involved."
▲ In 2019, Giuliani once again appeared on the cover of "Time", and he has not been able to get praise.
After being bound to Trump, Giuliani has completely become the object of everyone's shouting and beating in the United States. The crew of Hollywood's restrictive political comedy "Borat" first set their sights on Giuliani. The controversial filming method of the crew is that the actors approach the well-known unsuspecting characters as characters in the play, and then conceal the reactions of the other party, and finally edit it into a movie.
When filming "Borat 2" set in the 2020 presidential election, then Vice President Pence and Giuliani, who was Trump's confidant, became the object of the crew's deception, Pence was only filmed after the crew broke into a real Republican meeting, full of surprised expressions, And Giuliani was invited to the hotel room by the actress in a fake identity, and was directly filmed for indecent behavior, edited into the movie. After the film was released, Giuliani was labeled a "color old man".
On April 30 of this year, the FBI raided Giuliani's apartment in New York for evidence of the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine during Trump's "Tongwu" incident. At this time, Trump, who has been "banned" by various social media, has stubbornly spoken out through various channels, saying that Giuliani is a "hero of the United States" and has been "politically hunted down". In the end, Giuliani was accused of spreading various "election fraud theory" information as Trump's lawyer, and was revoked by the courts in New York and Washington, D.C. Losing his qualification to practice may be the reason why Giuliani ran to record a small video of blessings to earn "extra money".
Cuomo: The image of "Mom's Favorite Son" collapsed in a blink of an eye
Twenty years later, when the crisis went from two buildings in Manhattan to a virus raging in every corner of the country, Cuomo, the governor who runs the entire state of New York, became the focus of attention. The Como family held a prominent position in New York State politics, and Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario Cuomo, was governor of New York for more than a decade in the last century.
New York State has a population of about 20 million, including Most of the New York Metropolitan Area, which is the third largest state in the United States. New York State bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic and was the first state in the United States to have an outbreak.
Like Giuliani, Cuomo became a hero in the eyes of many people during the epidemic, relying on the support of the president at the time. Then-President Trump's poor performance in the fight against the epidemic made the united states generally dissatisfied, and although the epidemic in New York State was the most serious, the authorities also performed the most positively against the epidemic. New York State was the fastest expanding state in the United States at the beginning of the outbreak, and the chances of ordinary people getting nucleic acid tests were relatively easier and the results were faster. New York and other places have successively established the American version of the "square cabin hospital", although the actual effect does not dare to compliment, but compared to the "kung fu flu" concept, call for the injection of disinfectant into the body, at least the attitude is correct.
▲Como at the epidemic conference. (Image from Xinhuanet)
What makes Como win the hearts and minds of the people is Como's impressive performance in front of the camera. In March 2020, Cuomo connected with cnn's younger brother Chris Cuomo, who was supposed to discuss New York State's curfew order in response to the outbreak, and then the conversation ran off topic to the "curfew" given to them by their parents when they were young, and finally turned into an online chat of "who is the mother's favorite son". This "family show" is also a rare warm memory of New Yorkers in the epidemic.
The many head-to-head confrontations with Trump himself have highlighted Cuomo's image. Cuomo has repeatedly accused Trump of responding poorly to the epidemic, not only failing to provide sufficient support to New York State, but also repeatedly sending wrong information and dragging down the fight against the epidemic. When Komo's reputation is in the ascendant, even higher than that of his Democratic colleagues - 2020 presidential candidate Biden, Trump deliberately "pulled" to say that Komo is more suitable for the presidency than Biden, and Cuomo responded calmly on his brother's program, saying that only Trump will not think about saving American lives in the face of the epidemic, only thinking about how to win the campaign.
▲ On May 17, 2020, at a press conference held in Albany, New York, USA, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (left) demonstrated the COVID-19 testing process with doctors. On the same day, Cuomo announced that New York State's COVID-19 testing capacity has reached 40,000 per day, and encouraged eligible residents to be tested. (Image from Xinhuanet)
However, entering 2021, Como's fans have also ushered in the "waking time". Cuomo's own career's highest anti-epidemic work was the first to "explode", and the media found that the nursing home system in New York State concealed a large number of cases of elderly people infected with the new crown epidemic and died, and the number of deaths in New York in the epidemic was actually more exaggerated than the shocking numbers that had been exposed before. Cuomo's former secretary revealed that concealing the death toll was actually deliberately done by Cuomo in response to Trump's federal government investigation into New York State.
Cuomo has also been dumped in the old account, asking nursing homes to pick up "compliant" COVID-19 patients in the early days of the outbreak, a bad decision that critics say has exacerbated the spread of the epidemic in nursing homes.
Komo's confidants also began to turn against him, with male colleagues accusing him of bullying subordinate officials and even party colleagues and parliamentarians, while female assistants accused Cuomo of sexual harassment. According to the American Overseas Chinese Daily, on August 4, local time, a 165-page report by the New York State prosecutor said that Cuomo had sexually harassed a number of women during his tenure, including unwelcome kisses, touching and inappropriate speech. As soon as this report came out, Como had to announce his resignation on the 10th local time.
Just live too long?
The two "New York heroes" established nearly 20 years apart collapsed one after another within two years. Some netizens re-read the classic line in "The Dark Knight": "You either died young as a hero, or lived long enough to eventually witness yourself becoming a villain."
The dramatic experience of the two "heroes" is largely a "show". At the end of 2020, Cuomo received a special award from the most authoritative international Emmy Awards in the United States radio and television industry. The judges believe that Cuomo has become one of the most popular TV shows by attending the press conference every day during the epidemic to inform New Yorkers of the latest developments in the epidemic, and that he can tell the truth and empathize with this "show" of his own.
After Cuomo "rolled over", Democratic politicians jointly demanded that the award be stripped away, but it was worth a TV technology trophy to package the New York politician who was in a mess of anti-epidemic work as "Mom's favorite son". After 9/11, some people also edited the footage of Giuliani directing the rescue on the streets of New York, leading many people to conclude that "the so-called heroic mayor is just like this". The speed of "creating gods" and "destroying gods" in modern media has also accelerated rapidly. The rise and fall of the two "New York heroes" is not so much a certain pathology in the quality of the two people, but rather the characteristics of American democratic politics.
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