The son was wrong about American greatness

ALBANY, N.Y. _ Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn't commit a gaffe when he said America isn't that great. He didn't misspeak or express himself inartfully, as he later claimed.

When you watch the tape or read his words, you can only conclude the governor said exactly what he intended to say. Cuomo was making a point others have made, and he was, it is worth noting, giving a speech that presumably was at least somewhat pre-prepared.

Here's Cuomo's full quote:

"We're not going to make America great again _ it was never that great. We have not achieved greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women _ 51 percent of the population _ is gone."

By my count, Cuomo says or implies that America is not great four times in that short sound bite.

He was wrong. America is fundamentally great.

I'll confess that I haven't always felt that way. There was a point when claims to American greatness hit my ears like simple-minded jingoism, ignorant of the country's grave sins and hypocrisies _ slavery first and foremost among them.

Plus, I was a history and American studies major in college, which meant I was taught all about the country's faults and prejudices and little about its triumphs. Our professors must have assumed we'd heard all the good stuff in high school.

There is still much about American culture that I dislike, including its violence and consumerism. But as you grow older, you learn and you gain perspective. For me, that has meant understanding why this country is uniquely great.

Donald Trump helped me get there, oddly enough, by forcing me to think about it all. His endlessly repeated campaign slogan, of course, was "Make America Great Again," which implies America is not currently or fundamentally great.

Trump was wrong, too.

It isn't complicated. This country is great because it was uniquely founded on principles that set a standard for the world. By declaring that all (white) men were born free and with sacrosanct rights, the Founding Fathers made a radical statement about individual dignity that changed the path of human history.

Those ideals underpin all that came afterward. America could not have become an economic and cultural superpower without them, nor could it have become the premier destination for waves of the world's tired and poor.

Recognizing American exceptionalism isn't a claim to moral or any other superiority. It isn't narrow-minded nationalism or an excuse for wrongs. We still have work to do.

But so does every other country, and it is foolhardy to equate greatness with perfection, as Cuomo did. (What does "fully engaged" even mean?) The country's mistakes do not wipe away its glories, just as the horror of Japanese internment camps doesn't erase how American soldiers saved a continent and defeated Hitler.

It will be interesting to see if the governor's comments do him lasting damage, particularly to his presidential ambitions. They may not. The faith in American exceptionalism has been waning.

"You think our country is so innocent?" Trump said when asked about the crimes of Vladimir Putin, a murderous dictator and heir to an ideology that led the Soviet Union to kill millions upon millions of its own people.

Still, a poll from 2016 found that Americans overwhelmingly believe in the country's greatness. Nearly 70 percent said America is currently great, while 20 percent said the country used to be great but no longer is. Just 7 percent said America has never been great.

The numbers show that you don't have to be white and a male to believe in American exceptionalism, and they help explain why Cuomo, amid a firestorm of criticism, reversed course and sought to undo the damage.

"Of course America is great and of course America has always been great," he told reporters on Friday. "As you know, my family is evidence of American greatness."

Mario Cuomo was the son of impoverished immigrants who became a governor and, in some eyes, a potential president. Such a rise would have been unimaginable, if not impossible, in any other country.

That didn't stop the elder Cuomo from pointing out his country's flaws. In the son's comments, there are echoes of the father's "Tale of Two Cities" speech from 1984.

But Mario Cuomo didn't forget that his country was uniquely special. In that same speech, he called America "the greatest nation in the only world we know."

Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill(at)timesunion.com