Why the Worst Rise to the Top in Politics | Intellectual Takeout

Why the Worst Rise to the Top in Politics | Intellectual Takeout
"...In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated that nursing homes accept patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 even if it means exposing their residents to the virus....at least 6,600 of the state’s deaths happened in nursing homes.  (The AP described New York’s death toll as “cloaked in secrecy” and even Democratic state legislators have accused the state of trying to cover up the number of nursing home deaths).

...Worse, Cuomo has refused to allow an independent investigation into his handling of the nursing home debacle despite bipartisan calls for oversight.

...Yet Cuomo didn’t just woefully botch his handling of COVID-19. 

He actively brags about his supposed “success” and has even attempted to capitalize on it personally...

...The level of arrogance required for a politician to engage in such a tone-deaf display is stunning. But it gets worse.

Apparently, Cuomo had time to write an entire book while handling the COVID-19 crisis. Even if it was ghost-written, Cuomo still must have had an eye on capitalizing on the crisis for self-promotion all along.

The governor’s new book is titled American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and is set for an Oct. 13 release....

...It’s also no coincidence that one of the country’s worst politicians is “failing upward” in his career, from his skyrocketing public profile to his (likely lucrative) book deal.

...as economist Friedrich A. Hayek famously noted in a chapter of The Road to Serfdom titled “Why the Worst Get on Top,” positions of power in big-government systems inevitably attract a society’s worst and most immoral individuals.

“[Hayek] argued with great insightfulness that ‘the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful’ in any society in which government is seen as the answer to most problems,” 
Cuomo’s rise and New York’s COVID-19 saga prove Hayek right and leaves us with a clear lesson: 

• So long as we entrust massive amounts of power to the government, we will continue to unintentionally place our fate in the hands of the worst among us.

 However, by leaving more of our problems to be solved by the private sector and civil society, we can ensure that true innovators and moral leaders are the ones leading us forward."...Read all!