excerpts from the above article:
"My initial reaction was shock, relief, and frustration. Shock, because I never thought it would happen. Relief because of what it means for New Yorkers across the state. And frustration because of how it allows him to escape real accountability through the impeachment process.
The reason it happened now is because Cuomo saw no political path forward. And he saw no path forward in which he could continue to write his own narrative.
His greatest public success happened alongside his greatest failure. While thousands of New Yorkers were dying, he was at his most popular, when any other executive would be at their lowest moment. That is because of his ability to create, control, and disseminate artificial narratives, which benefited him and him alone. He repurposed what was a statewide tragedy into an individual triumph.
But the longer this scandal went on, the longer others would start to write the narrative about it. And even in his resignation announcement, he was trying to write the final chapter of his story from his perspective: That he was doing this for our benefit. Not because it was right — in fact, it was wrong. But it would be selfish of him to show that it was wrong. And therefore, the true thing to do as the man of the people would be to step aside, even though he had done nothing wrong.
Cuomo ruled with an iron fist and with a culture of harassment that was not limited to those who were in his office. The stories of colleagues, of journalists, of state officials at different levels, who are subjected to this kind of harassment — those stories will only continue to come out. We have not seen the end of them
The real Andrew Cuomo legacy is a legacy of injustice, and of austerity, and of being able to evade accountability for almost the entirety of his time in office. This man was built from an individual into an institution, by many other people beyond himself. The only way to ensure that we never find ourselves in a situation like this again, is to ensure that accountability and responsibility is put at the feet of more than just Andrew Cuomo.
We cannot tell ourselves that this is just the story of an individual who will never come back again. Whether or not Andrew Cuomo runs again, the environment that allowed him to succeed continues to exist, and it’s up to us to tear that environment apart and create a new one."