#Gov. Cuomo, you don’t scare anyone — save yourself by resigning

Dear Andrew Cuomo,

You are the prime example of someone who has spent his public life following the admonition (falsely attributed to Harry Truman) that if you want a friend in politics, get a dog. Like a wannabe bride on “The Bachelor,” you aren’t here to make friends — you’re here to win the game.

You have no friends, Andrew. You have never had friends. What you’ve possessed, for decades now, is a limitless willingness to use intimidation to get your way — and a limitless capacity to intimidate. You are scary in a way few people outside of horror movies are scary, and you’ve used it to your advantage.

But what happens to a scary person when his capacity to scare dissipates? What happens when the people — your own political and ideological allies, whom you bent to your will just because you could — no longer fear you?

What happens is they destroy you.

I don’t mean they destroy you by saying mean things about you. I mean they will ruin your life. I mean they will make you feel that your life isn’t worth living.

Here’s what’s happened so far: The commander-in-chief, both Empire State US senators, the entirety of the Democratic delegation to the House of Representatives, a majority of New York state Democratic legislators and most of the union officials in New York have called upon you to resign.

And the man in Albany with the power to impeach you, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, said pointedly that you “can no longer remain in office.”

Man, that’s bad. But you know other politicians have survived onslaughts. You know former President Bill Clinton made it through Lewinskygate. You know Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam survived his youthful blackface photos.

And you’re a tough guy. After all, until last year, when you conned liberals into falling for you because you were supposedly the anti-Trump COVID hero, nobody ever loved you. You don’t need love. You probably think you just need to stick it out.

Oh, Andrew, trust me. What’s happened so far — you ain’t seen nothing yet. People in this state have been lying in wait for you. They have been collecting string, gathering anecdotes, collating documents, taking notes on their iPhones and writing memos to file.

They have been lying in wait to punish you for everything you’ve done to them, and the restraints are off. They have the goods, all the goods — all the threats you hurled, all the cruelties you inflicted. They could never let loose because the consequences of your ire and that of your flunkies would be too great to bear.

They’re no innocents, these people. You were able to intimidate them in part because they are cogs in the same political machinery you’ve spent your life mastering. It’s what Michael Corleone says: “We’re all part of the same hypocrisy.”

But you’re on the ropes here. They won’t have much to lose, and suddenly there’s going to be a lot of interest in every possible bad story anyone in this state can deliver against you.

The liberal media have been given permission to go for your jugular. You face a tsunami of opposition from every leading Democrat. As the police dispatcher at the end of the old John Belushi movie tells the cops of Chicago, “use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved.” Everything will come out.

Everything.

And you don’t have an ally left. Maybe your hitman underlings would be able to retail retaliatory leaks against your accusers to see what will stick. But I suspect people aren’t going to be eager to take your sidekick Melissa DeRosa’s calls any longer — unless she turns on you.

All of this will only strengthen Heastie’s hand as he pursues your impeachment and removal. Hour after hour. Day after day.

You have one chance. Go. Resign now.

Your departure wouldn’t entirely quiet the pursuit, but it would calm it somewhat. Your pursuers will be somewhat sated by your fall, and the media will want to give you a break. Oh, sure, books will come out in a year or two, but who reads books any longer, right? Nobody read yours.

You did this to yourself. So do yourself one last favor and spare yourself and your family the horror of living through your inevitable evisceration, obliteration and destruction.

You’re welcome.

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