Have you seen Andrew Cuomo’s poster? The New York governor’s pandemic-themed design was apparently intended as a celebration of the state’s effort against coronavirus. It’s difficult to describe, but there’s a mountain in the middle labeled “111 Days of Hell,” a rope around it labeled “Pulling Down the Curve Together,” a river marked with dollar signs and labeled “economy falls,” a plane captioned “Europeans,” a wind-blowing devil titled “winds of fear,” and overhead, a banner positioned above a rainbow that reads (what else?) “love wins,” as a sun smiles and a blonde man on a crescent moon says, “It’s just the flu.”
I don’t have anything nice to say about it, except that it’s a helpful insight into a singularly incompetent and disorganized mind.
Without the labels, the design would be utterly incoherent, though with them, there’s a certain child’s logic. Nevertheless, it must remain one of the weirdest political stunts to come out of a crisis. But then, perhaps diversion is the point. For while the governor was getting ready to wow the nation with his 19th-century-style propaganda (did I mention there is a table at the bottom of the mountain labeled “New York State Leads Again”?), the rest of the country has been noticing that, in the wake of coronavirus, conditions in New York are getting worse, not better.
Yes, COVID-19 daily death rates are now by the dozen rather than the thousand, but New York City’s crime problem, at its worst since the 1990s, is spiraling out of control. In the first three weeks of June, there was more than double the number of shootings compared with last year. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has suggested that these are crimes of desperation. – READ MORE
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