New Yorkers are not kind to their elected officials. We’ll re-elect Mayor Bill de Blasio only to complain about his every move. We’ll support another term for Governor Andrew Cuomo and call him egotistical.

However recently, the Governor has outdone himself in the eyes of New Yorkers as he deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. In such an uncertain time, his daily press conferences give us a sense of order. He bluntly states whether we’re at the precipice or the plateau, and then comforts us, and then screams at us to stay indoors.

How come the once-hated Governor by some is winning the hearts and minds of New Yorkers? It is because Cuomo, with his drive for power and control, is perfectly suited for the crisis before us.

Governor Cuomo is leading the response in the United States in a way no other politician is doing. He didn’t originally hesitate to close schools when the Mayor floundered. He spars with the President when he’s being obnoxious and stubborn. The concept is clear: the Governor knows what he wants and what he needs for the state, and, as he said before in one of his pressers, he won’t shy away from confrontation if it’s needed.

Under any other circumstance, I’d be complaining about the Governor’s heavy-handed approach to governing. His rulings are not without issue: his use of incarcerated labor to make hand sanitizer has drawn criticism. His response to the outbreak within prisons has also elicited criticism. His preoccupation with the optics of a shelter-in-place order confused some.

However, his style of leadership is just what the doctor ordered when dealing with a tragedy of this scale. Begrudgingly, the whole state of New York is thanking Governor Cuomo.