It shouldn't be that way. Families shouldn't have that much power. But they do. And it takes a fair bit to bring them down.
However, it is a fact that politics is a nasty business. We benefit when the people capable of doing it are the ones that we put in power. Otherwise, we will get gobbled up by the other factions and entities that do emplace that sort of person in their political institutions.
Personally I find it very interesting that these behaviors have allegedly been known by those in his working radius for many years, yet they are only coming to a head now after Cuomo's profile was elevated within the party and on the national stage during the scary slog of covid.
I am leery of the use of sexual indiscretions to hamstring political operators. If he did something illegal (to be clear, I am not saying he is innocent nor guilty), they should take it to court rather than to the New York Times.
I don't think that power itself is necessarily a corrupting force, but it is a magnet for those who are corrupted.
When one person agrees and the other disagrees it comes down to interpretation of the rules and then imposing those rules. It can become very despotic quite fast. And it’s not because the people are like that. The “system” makes them into that. In the case above, if the agreer sees the disagreers side this encourages other disagreers to flout whatever it was and things can devolve into anarchy. So you necessarily have to enforce some rules.
> All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
That's not how the real world works. We're not in a comic book or self help course where if you want something badly enough, you'll get it.
Plenty of people want to be successful rappers (insert any other competitive profession). Most of them don't make it.
Now if you genuinely believe the deciding factor is 'willingness to go to any ends', you're simply empirically wrong. That's not how the real world functions and if it did, complex modern society would not be possible.
Democracy has less corruption than other systems due to separation of power, but it's foolish to think there isn't temptation to become corrupt when you think you can get away with something.
Until someone doesn't agree with a law. Then it will return to coercion.
The definition of corruption is willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.
Given a tribe is big enough, it'll have multiple sub-tribes in it. Now go back to paragraph one.
That's why politics is corrupt, as soon as a tribe is above a tiny size, people act dishonestly to further their sub-tribe's interests.
Governor positions aren’t placed via connections or corruption or family power. The citizens have to vote them in.
These most recent issues weren’t known prior to the last election cycle. Given these recent revelations I don’t see the voters going for him again, if he were to run at all.
They don't put "enforcing a strict moral code" above their direct personal preferences.
During the most recent NYC gubernatorial elections, eight parties had "automatic ballot access" due to getting enough votes on their party line from the last election. One of these eight is the "Women's Equality Party," created by Cuomo and his running mate Kathy Hochul in 2014, when Cuomo was already governor and running for re-election.
Those eight parties ended up nominating three candidates: four including the Democrats nominated Cuomo, three including the Republicans nominated Marc Molinaro, and the Greens nominated Howie Hawkins.
Two other parties without automatic ballot access were able to get onto the ballot - the Libertarians and the new "Serve America Movement" party. 15K signatures are required to qualify. The Libertarians got about 30K signatures and 95K votes; the SAM got about 40K signatures and 55K votes. There were also about 7K write-ins. Meanwhile, the two major nominees got millions of votes each.
It is technically true that an independent or write-in candidate could win. I don't think a write-in candidate has ever won state-wide office in New York. One write-in candidate has achieved federal office in recent years, but it was an extraordinarily special case that does not back up the general idea that write-in candidates are viable: incumbent Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski won re-election in 2010 after losing her primary.
I'd say she actually underscores that write-ins prevent some types of democratic backsliding in the US, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the unhealthy instincts of the core Republicans who tend to decide primaries in deeply Red states result in at least one more Murkowski in 2022.