New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Rejects MAGA: America Was ‘Never That Great’

How about the full quote, OP?

[quote]“We not going to Make America Great Again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness. [bold]We will reach greatness when every American is fully engage.[/bold]”

LOL at the gasps from the room when he said "We're not going to make America great again. It was never that great."

He is right. Conservatives want to glorify an era where only straight white men mattered and everyone else was second-class citizens.

OP/R4 is the "LOL" idiot.

^^^ OP/R2 is the LOL idiot.

Yeah he’s right but you can’t say those words as a politician.

Compared to the rest of the world, for a time there, the US was indeed great.

OP is a shit-stirring troll. Kill it with fire.

The OP is right. Cuomo is an idiot for saying that and this is a preview of what we’d get with him as the Democratic nominee.

Someone needs to shove a slice of Kwanzaa Kake in his mouth.

Say what you will but that's the first white boy I've seen in some time who I could see myself with !

He was never a serious 2020 contender (although Trollina's intent here is to poison us against ALL possible Democratic contenders).

He's also not wrong. Everyone knows MAGA is a dog whistle meaning "Make America the place where you're automatically the fucking king if you're born straight, white and male again."

OP is a troll and several freeper trolls are in this thread

[QUOTE]Everyone knows MAGA is a dog whistle meaning "Make America the place where you're automatically the fucking king if you're born straight, white and male again."

Well then say that America is greater today than it’s ever been before. Say the American project is one that’s still being perfected. Say America is like fine wine: it gets better with time. Say ANYTHING other than “America was never great.” It’s too callous. You would never hear someone like President Obama utter those words.

How great America is depends on who you are.

I'm a little confused. I realize that 90% of Datalounge posters are liberal Democrats. That's fine. But why is anyone who disagrees with those opinions automatically called a troll? Can't you honestly disagree with someone? Who wants to converse with people who just agree with you?

R16 you don’t even have to disagree to be called a freeper, just posting any news that is negative regarding liberals is considered being a freeper. Even though someone might be mocking Cuomo because they support Nixon. So dumb

Of course he is correct. But he could of put that fact forth with a better speechwriter. We just have a soundbite that will be played FOREVER till the elections.

He’s an idiot. He NEVER had a shot in 2020. He’ll win re-election in NY, but that’s it. He’s widely hated in NYC and progressive circles, and he couldn’t be more corrupt in Albany. He’s not even a worthy running mate. This latest quote means nothing.

Gore Vidal said America was great for the 5 years after WW2. Then it turned imperialistic.

Though interestingly he returned to the states at the end of his life. Ex pats often do.

I hate the US having spent my whole life here but I imagine anywhere else being even worse.

How could he be this stupid and out of touch?

He's even worse than that nitwit brother of his.

R20 there is no utopia. My parents both immigrated here from what most consider third world countries where they lived in poverty for generations. Coming to America was the greatest gift they gave me.

We can make it better, and we should.

Dump regularly shit on America saying we sucked and we were a hellhole. He did it daily and he won over the supposed most patriotic group in the country (we know they aren't but still).

Cuomo is not loved in the party. If he were the nominee, I would hate it with every fiber of my being but I would still vote for him.

DL Hugley lost his mind on Bill Maher when Steven Pinker, a reknowned scientist, said that America and the world has gotten better over the last 50 years, citing less crime, better jobs, and higher life expectancy. I wonder if people like DL think it was even great under Obama.

r25 Of course we do. However, it was hard for me to see things were getting better in the 90s when I was in high school when all I heard was fag this, fag that, fags suck, Imma kill some fags. In hindsight, things were better in so many ways. When you are oppressed, it is not always easy to see things are better when things are still bad.

r14 is right. Cuomo was trying to be clever with the order of his phrases, but he made a very rookie error in not realizing which phrase would be the one remembered.

Republicans will play this clip for the rest of his political life.

DL Hugley is a homophobe with a single digit IQ who got into a hissy fit over gays on CNN with Dan Savage saying he couldn’t support them. So Dan said he couldn’t support his being black. Hurley was speechless.

r28 why would they care when Dump said worse about America??????????

Because I like to win elections, r30.

I see Fox News is working to make sure this doesn’t go away. Perfect distraction from Cheetoh’s latest adventures.

Just like Carter telling America to turn the thermostat down, when’s Democrat tells a hard truth about America, they are labeled as ‘unpatriotic’ by the jingo-populists..

R33 What Carter said is in no way comparable.

R21 is stupid and out of touch

DL Hughley? The profoundly unfunny faux-outrage idiot?

Carter is actually a good comparison.

Stephen Colbert blasted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over his “America was never that great” remarks.

At an event in New York City, Cuomo mocked President Donald Trump for his 2016 slogan “Make America Great Again.”

“We’re not going to make America great again… it was never that great,” Cuomo told the crowd.

Before playing the clip, Colbert asked his audience “spot” the “stupid” thing he said, jokingly warning them that it “subtle to pick out.”

And the facial expressions made by Colbert and his Late Show band frontman Jon Batiste say it all.

“That is the dumbest thing you could say as a politician,” Colbert reacted. “That’s like closing your speech with, ‘Apple pie sucks, I’m lukewarm on the troops, and those stripes make the American flag look fat! Thank you, I hate my mother!'”

Cuomo was never going anywhere. There's something about him that rubs people the wrong way, regardless of whether they agree with him or not.

The last thing we need is two candidates in a row who have to deal with the "U" word.

So does this mean I can win Gov. now?

He has a point. The good old days weren't ever really that good. It's just people idealzing a time period.

How does someone who's been in politics for decades not know you can't say something like that?

He's corrupt as they come. And talks out his ass most of the time.

People need to vote for Cynthia. At least she's honest. You have a viable opponent and people are still going to vote for the same old, same old.

[QUOTE]So does this mean I can win Gov. now?

[QUOTE]—Cynthia Nixon

Actually I think it’s great for the primary. He’s now engaged in a battle with Trump and the Republican party over how good the “good old days” really were. That should help endear him to large swaths of the Democratic Party.

The problem for him would be everything else after the primary, including his aspirations to be the 2020 Dem nominee.

I'm as liberal as they come but I was horrified by this quote. Cuomo knows he screwed up, so does everyone on his staff. He is over, nationally.

But if you are liberal, Cuomo really shouldn't have been your guy anyway. He is a right-leaning centrist in a liberal state, so he sometimes appears to be liberal, but it's not his true nature. If it weren't for Nixon, he wouldn't be running on a liberal platform.

He is also as corrupt as the rest of NY state politicians, and he does everything he can to hide it. Much rather have him in power than any republican, any republican at all, but still, being liberal doesn't mean having to endorse, or even like, this entitled jackass.

People who think like R43 are the reason we have Trump. Honesty doesn’t alone qualify someone for the highest office in a state. She’s like Clay Aiken, thinks she’s too important to run for something like school board or city council to gain governing experience. Instead she wants the top job and may turn out to be a spoiler that gives NY a governor with a ‘R’ after his name.

[QUOTE]I'm as liberal as they come but I was horrified by this quote.

Why would you, as a liberal, be “horrified” by that quote?

Funny how it's OK in Europe to say that your country [insert name] 'Was Never That Great' but it's so controversial in the US.

It wouldn't even raise an eyebrow here in the UK and we controlled almost 25% of the World in 1920.

He’s wrong.

Bill Clinton once said “there’s nothing wrong with America that what’s right with America cannot fix.”

I’m a gay progressive democrat. And I love the USA. Its citizens & politicians are not perfect. But we at least can become perfect...a “more perfect” union.

[quote] I think this is just another example of Andrew Cuomo trying to figure out what a progressive sounds like and missing by a mile.

[quote]It wouldn't even raise an eyebrow here in the UK and we controlled almost 25% of the World in 1920.

If you'd played your cards right in the 1770s, you could've had even more.

What he made was a political mistake. However that doesn’t mean his words lacked truth. He was right in his diagnosis; the crime was in his callousness when speaking to the patient.

I think he might have been a good centrist candidate on the Democratic side. But now he's toast. If he ran the GOP would just play a tape of him saying this over and over again.

His point may or may not be valid, but whoever wrote the speech and phrased it in that manner should be fired.

As was beaten into my head over and over through my years at work, perception is reality for most people. It doesn't matter what you say, it only matters what people THINK you said.

[QUOTE] R51 If you'd played your cards right in the 1770s, you could've had even more.

The thing is we don't want it back, nobody in the UK wants another Empire. The past is the past.

Cuomo's dickheaded comment will be front & center of every Republican national election TV commercial this Fall, and probably quite a few local ones.

Vote Cynthia.

NY needs new ideas.

[quote]...perception is reality for most people. It doesn't matter what you say, it only matters what people THINK you said.

Exactly, R54. Something the NFL kneeling protestors should have learned by now.

Love the "liberals" pretending to be outraged over this. Admit it, you're freeper trolls because only Repugs get outraged over things like this.

Colbert and Cynthia Nixon being famous freeper trolls.

Desperate Douchecunt tries to walk it back...

I think he'd be better suited to a position as an information clerk at the Buffalo DMV, than Governor.

If his family hadn't emigrated to the US, today I could imagine him selling fruit off of a truck in Salerno.

These things have a way of not going away, unfortunately, even if they're out of context. In March 2016, Hillary Clinton said, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" in the context of discussing energy policy.

That snippet is still being used in political ads in coal producing areas, according to a relative in Kentucky, to smear Democrats. Hillary devoted an entire chapter to it in her book.

I'm afraid that's true, R63. That clip is being run daily by opponents of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

[quote]Love the "liberals" pretending to be outraged over this. Admit it, you're freeper trolls because only Repugs get outraged over things like this.

Few are "outraged" over this.

If you even bothered to read the thread, the majority of people have rightly pointed out that it was a political fumble to make the comment in such terms, whatever point he was trying to make.

It is a comment that will come back to haunt him, as "deplorables" haunted HRC. it is so easily spun, misquoted, and purposefully misinterpreted by political enemies that it cannot be viewed as anything but an error in judgment.

Sigh...deplorables and their performative patriotism fetish.

I agree with the gist of what he said---there hasn't been a single day in America where there has not been some group suffering injustice and bigotry. He just said in the stupidest possible manner.

I wonder if Aunt Sandy has been pouring him some of her 90 proof cocktails.

He tries to weasel out of it.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running for a third term and a potential candidate for president in 2020, acknowledged Friday that he was “inartful” when he said this week that America “was never that great.”The Democrat went on to expound on something that few elected officials ever need to spell out.“I want to be very clear: 𝑶𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕,” Cuomo said on a teleconference with reporters.

How the hell do you go from “America was never great” to “America has always been great”? 😂

Cuomo was trying to relate to the blacks, native americans and ended making the whites angry. It’s a hard balance to strike.

New York politics is so confusing.

What R65 said.

what a pathetic country we are. We're the only superpower, and yet we have to be constantly reassured we're "great" whatever the hell that means, and that we were always great. Pathetic. Still don't mind Cuomo blowing it. The last thing we need right now is another careful centrist Democrat who will assure us that keeping the rich getting richer and fucking over everyone else is the only sensible course.

Only Americans think they're the best country in the world.

I am shocked that so many here are defending him by stating that he was right.

Hillary Clinton was right when she made her basket of Deplorables statement. She was right all the way to losing the election. It astounds me that some of you don't seem to have learned shit from her unforgivable gaffe.

The fact that she was right, means nothing. Read Colbert's comment above. It says all that ever needs to be said.

R76,

Dataloungers—specifically those who voted the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton and dumped on Bernie Sanders (and, even after 2016, continue to express that here in 2018)—are not politically aware let alone astute.

I smell the vodka on Boris/r77's breath from here.

[quote]Hillary Clinton was right when she made her basket of Deplorables statement. She was right all the way to losing the election. It astounds me that some of you don't seem to have learned shit from her unforgivable gaffe.

What on Earth are you talking about, you dumb motherfucking, pussy. Trump insulted every fucking segment of the population. Go fuck yourself.

[quote]Exactly, [R54]. Something the NFL kneeling protestors should have learned by now.

Thanks for outing yourself as a racist.

[quote]The last thing we need is two candidates in a row who have to deal with the "U" word.

Huh?

[quote]Sigh...deplorables and their performative patriotism fetish.

Yet they have no problem with their leaders bowing to dictators to selling their country out to Russians.

R2 is right that you can hear the audience gasp when Cuomo says America was never that great.

It definitely sounds bad to most people.

Usually the Republicans are wrong in their attacks on the Democrats, but this is one case where they are right that a Democrat screwed up.

Andrew Cuomo, why do you hate America so much?

R79 Exactly what thing or quality which is traditionally of American icon status did he insult? Jeez, can you not read and comprehend? He may have insulted and or denigrated some things you personally love, but name on thing which falls in the "American as apple pie and baseball" category which he insulted.

It was stupid of Cuomo to say it even if it's true. Democrats are supposed to be about hope and empowerment. Not some emo, SJW weak sauce. Sadly a fake message and image matter more than the truth.

America will not be great until every trans has their own reality show.

His face hurts more than his words.

Politicians say the darndest things.

[quote] Exactly, [[R54]]. Something the NFL kneeling protestors should have learned by now.

[quote] Thanks for outing yourself as a racist.

To be fair, Colin Kaepernick was protesting America, not racial injustice or Donald Trump. It's meaning has since changed. No one even knows for sure why each player kneels anymore and some fans still equate the kneeling with Kaepernick.

[quote]To be fair, Colin Kaepernick was protesting America, not racial injustice or Donald Trump.

It doesn't matter if Colin Kaepernick was protesting America.

The point is that a President of the United States is not supposed to refer to an American football player as a "son of a bitch".

[quote] Exactly what thing or quality which is traditionally of American icon status did he insult? Jeez, can you not read and comprehend? He may have insulted and or denigrated some things you personally love, but name on thing which falls in the "American as apple pie and baseball" category which he insulted.

Make America Great Again = America is a Shithole

Who's the next retard that needs me to spell it out for them?

Its drilled into us from birth about how great America is............its like a religion and nobody really questions it all that much. I dont think the brighter politicians actually believe it, at least hopefully. When you look at life expectancy, health care, all kinds of things we have slipped badly/and are barely in the top 50 in many categories. America is actually quite a toxic place to live. If I had a lot more $ and no elderly parents to worry about I would not live in the US.

Came in here expecting Jeff Daniels/Will McAvoy quote..

Valid point, R93.

Many Americans are not aware how far behind the rest of the Western world America is in many measures of social, economic & judicial policy.

[quote]When you look at life expectancy, health care, all kinds of things we have slipped badly/and are barely in the top 50 in many categories. America is actually quite a toxic place to live.

The money-lenders did this to the USA. It was illegal to profit from health care in the USA before 1973. Now our health care system is jut an excuse for capitalists to exploit illness and injury for monetary gain.

Our higher education system has also been co-opted and corrupted by money-lenders. We are selling generations of young scholars into a lifetime of debt for the benefit of a few banksters.

This is the least of Corrupt Cuomo's flaws. He supported the IDC -- Dems who caucus with the Republicans to give the latter control of the senate (!). Can you imagine if a Republican did this? He did it so he could stall progressive legislation and blame it on Republicans.

Cuomo is literally all the worst stereotypes of the Democrats all put together in one package.

We need Cynthia Nixon.

Remember, reading Wikileaks is illegal. You are only allowed to believe the lies that Gov. Cuomo's dim-bulb brother presents as facts on CNN.