The New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo has been condemned for his claim that ‘America was never that great’ but did he get his inspiration from a TV show? Democrat Andrew Cuomo’s speech bears many similarities to that made by Jeff Daniels, in the now-defunct political drama The Newsroom. Cuomo had attempted to lampoon Donald Trump’s election slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ as he signed a new law making sex trafficking a crime.
But it was seized upon by his Republican critics who bought him a one-way ticket to Canada. The New Yorker, who is running for a third term in office this November, proclaimed at a rally: ‘We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great. ‘We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. ‘We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotypes against women – 51% of our population – are gone and when every woman’s full potential is realised and unleashed.’ It bears an uncanny resemblance to the opening scene of HBO’s drama The Newsroom in which Jeff Daniels, as Will McAvoy, lists all the reasons why America should not be so arrogant in its proclamation to be ‘the greatest country in the world.’
At the time of the 2012 drama, he notes: ‘It’s not the greatest country in the world… ‘There’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement we are the greatest country in the world. We are 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, 4th in labour force and 4th in exports. ‘We lead the world in only three categories – the number of incarcerated citizens per capita, the number of adults who believe angels are real and defence spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined – 25 of whom are allies.’