Cuomo: 'We don't have a king, we have a president'

Governor Cuomo, quite rightly, wants to act together as a region, call it New England, or Lesser New England, not merely as a state, New York.

The British Crown had begged the separate colonists to combine, and had instituted The Dominion of New England in the 17th century. 

The separate colonies would have none of it, even though it would have benefitted both them and Great Britain in the long run, especially during the Seven Years War which came decades later.

In the bigger picture, the West should have never given up its monarchs and its empires.

We can see vividly how that series of blunders is now playing now across the globe, not just in the debate over how to handle regional difficulties under pandemic conditions.

Wikipedia: Dominion of New England