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The Book of the Week is “What’s Left Unsaid, My Life at the Center of Power, Politics, and Crisis” by Melissa DeRosa, published in 2023.
Born in the early 1980’s in Rochester in New York State, DeRosa worked in New York State politics. By April 2017, she had achieved a high-level job in governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration.
The author wrote that the federal government under president Trump handled the 2020 COVID pandemic in a way reminiscent of the movie, The Hunger Games, pitting states against one another for scarce medical supplies.
In mid-April 2020, the president declared that lifting the COVID lockdown in different areas of life nationwide, would rest on his authority. But conditions varied widely nationwide. Governors in seven northeastern states banded together to invoke the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which allows state governments jurisdiction over local law enforcement in the event of a public health emergency. Trump reversed himself in short order.
In late April 2020, DeRosa had a falling out with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. He was more worried about: voter-polling results (opinions) on COVID policies in swing states (that indicated whether his father-in-law was winning the then-presidential race!) than statistical medical data used to take actions to minimize the death rate.
According to the author, Cuomo’s people didn’t pick their battles with the media. They tried to fight them all– over every word in their every communication, making them appear contentious and petty. By May 2020, the collective mood of the nation was downright hostile over the COVID situation. The media took out its anger on Cuomo’s personnel.
As is well known, Cuomo became the victim of various acts of mean, nasty political retaliation. “Suddenly, you had a bizarre coalition calling for the governor’s resignation: Democratic Socialist AOC on the same side as MAGA Elise Stefanik in Congress, locking arms with the Democratic and Republican extremists in the state legislature.”
Read the book to learn about DeRosa’s experiences as a close Cuomo adviser in one crisis after another.
ENDNOTE: In order for public officials to achieve effective leadership of the United States: Numerous, diverse people must take years to analyze contemporary political issues while considering historical perspectives in order to understand how to make the necessary compromises required for workable solutions.
The top leader of the country has no time to do so after he or she has been elected. So, the public servants who accomplish the most to improve the lives of the highest number of people, are those who not only possess sufficient maturity and social skills, but those who have specific proposals that have been shown to work long-term, at-the-ready, before they get elected.
Not those who play well with the political machine, the media and their donors.