Communist Cuba began violent crackdowns this weekend following an unprecedented wave of protests. Cuban citizens have been calling for basic freedoms, resources, and government. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has deployed security forces onto protesters, arresting over 80 and detaining them in unknown locations.
This is all part and parcel of the ideology prominent members of the Democrat party are attempting to implement nationwide and have in some states. This ideology has captivated the majority of minds within the two younger American generations.
Authoritarianism is on full display in Cuba.
Today, thousands of Americans flooded the streets of Miami to show support and solidarity for the victims of Communist Cuba’s violent crackdowns. For decades, Cuba’s Communist government has been painted in bright gaslights by Democrats and the media. The propaganda paraded by the left has been effective—liberal millennials proudly sport paraphernalia, from flags to t-shirts, with the communist guerilla leader, Che Guevara’s, face on it. Ironically, some of these items can be seen at Pride Parades and other such rallies.
Major media outlets have labeled these recent Cuban protests as right-wing and have downplayed the plight of the Cuban people by framing their cries for freedom around COVID-19. That tall tale could not be further from the truth. Sadly, it is a truth that will sound eerily similar.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Cuba has been in almost total lockdown. The economy is failing, its communist government repressive and spending money as if it grew on trees, and Cuban citizens left in the dirt as its government sends aid to foreign nations. But none of this is new. The pandemic is a catalyst, not a cause. The Cuban people have been suffering under the heavy hand of tyranny since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.
What is new is the Cuban coalition. Cubans from all sides of the political spectrum have joined together to fight for basic freedoms and liberties. Protestors have been boasting American flags as their own government rains bullets into crowds. Some Americans have been led to believe importing the small Caribbean island’s political ideology will not have the same results here.
“It can’t happen here,” so they say.
Authoritarianism in all its forms always leads to the same results: poverty for the populace, the State above all, and total tyranny. This road to serfdom, too, starts the same as well: calls for security and safety, demonization of scapegoats, an existential threat only bigger government can solve, and promises of a utopia that never manifests.
From Hong Kong all the way to California, we see the spread of the same style of authoritarianism the Cuban people are enduring. What is worse is that in the United States, we are taste-testing 20th-century fascism: where Big Business enforces what Big Government wants.
People may say it’s a slippery slope ‘fallacy’ to believe that tyrannical tendencies by powerful politicians will not lead to authoritarianism here.
But, then again, some people also truly believe the Earth is flat.
