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It’s only August, but it’s never too early for Miami Republicans to make fools of themselves by bringing the specter of Cuba’s communism to the storied political playgrounds of U.S. presidential elections.
Last weekend, the beleaguered caiman-shaped island — used and abused for personal and political gain on both sides of the Florida Straits — played a two-bit role like a movie extra on the GOP’s primary campaign trail at the Iowa State Fair.
This Trump vs. DeSantis feature film, playing on Fox News, was brought to you by Miami congressman Carlos Gimenez, up for re-election in 2024.
Because how else can you deflect from the fact that the man you wholeheartedly support, Donald Trump, is now a four-time indicted criminal suspect who tried to subvert democracy by stealing the 2020 election, as Monday night’s Georgia indictment so eloquently outlines?
Where’s the logic?
“Like I told the people of Iowa, I came from another country. I had to flee my country. I see many of the same things that happened in my own country of Cuba,” Gimenez told Fox News Digital on Sunday. “Not exactly, but some signs of the same things that are starting to happen here.”
Cringeworthy, unsupported words for which he provided no evidence to Iowans — or me when I requested it. And his reasoning to justify supporting Trump over Florida Gov. DeSantis became more twisted as he went on.
“I certainly don’t want, you know, this country to go down that path,” Gimenez said. “And I think the one person that can reverse the path that we’re on, which is, in my opinion, a disastrous path, is President Trump.”
This is the only president in the country’s history to refuse to peacefully surrender power, then hold the country hostage with false claims of fraud. And he’s the ultimate defender of democracy. It’s almost comic relief.
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But here’s the tragedy: If you’re Gimenez — whose consultant son worked for Trump — you shamelessly use the convenient boogieman of communism suffered by real Cubans to throw shade.
It’s documented fact that, pre-Obama engagement policy, Trump negotiated with the Castro regime to build a Havana Tower and a golf course in paradisaical Varadero, registering his Trump trademark in Cuba, all violations of the U.S. embargo.
Trump was counting on Democrats opening Cuba and wanted his foot in the door first.
Two Miami figures involved with Trump confirmed it to me. One was a Cuban American active in exile activism and worked on the tower project.
The other is a big Miami Republican donor and Trump supporter. I interviewed him years ago on another issue after he sailed to Havana on a yacht with a Trump employee, who went there to scatter his father’s ashes and was welcomed with open-arms at the Hemingway Marina. As they left, the men were told to give regards to Trump and assure him he was welcome there.
Republicans’ constant pounding to make the Democratic Party look like a door-to-door delivery service of communism is only opportunistic, self-serving hypocrisy.
“To think we Cubans had to leave our country because of a dictator and there you are Carlos with a wannabe dictator for life,” a constituent named Mayra tweeted at Gimenez. “A man that is charged with trying to upend an election he lost. You are an embarrassment to democracy and to all of us freedom-loving Floridians.”
Trump vs. DeSantis
Unfortunately, DeSantis barely won the governorship in 2018 using the same communism scare tactics — then was resoundingly was re-elected. A man of fascist leanings, he pushed for and signed into law some of the most extremist right-wing measures in the country. He also uses the U.S. Constitution for undemocratic purposes, making fascism the more likely political affiliation menacing the nation.
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Voters are being blatantly fooled by the GOP, whose Florida chairman boasts that his goal in life is: “0 Dems in FL.”
It’s as democratic as Cuba’s one-party rule.
Gimenez’s his pathetic performance — Iowans more likely want to sell corn to Cuba than worry about communism — might have stayed within the realm of the Fox-consuming voter base. But media outlet made a big deal of it, and Google gave the spiel wings, circulating an alert as if what Gimenez said was earth-shattering.
It baited with the headline: “Florida congressman born in Cuba explains why he backed Trump, not DeSantis at Iowa State Fair.”
Tenuous Cuba ties
About those Cuba ties . . .
If the math of Gimenez’s biography are accurate, he was no more than 6 when he left Cuba with his “rancher” parents in 1960.
Kinda puts a damper on what “I had to flee my country” implies. It wasn’t his decision — and he lived through no communism.
His preschooler years were marked by political jockeying for power between the Cuban Revolution’s rebel and activist factions. Fidel Castro didn’t declare himself a Communist until December 1961, post Bay of Pigs invasion.
If Gimenez had experienced real communism, he would easily see the totalitarian similarities not with big-tent Dems, but with autocrats Trump and DeSantis.
He’s a Miami kid whose English is perfect, but Spanish is awkward. He’d fail a quiz on Cuba.
Yet, Gimenez told Fox News that bringing a former president to justice for a stunning myriad of crimes is “reminiscent to me of a Third World country.”
No, congressman, it’s reminiscent of Miami’s long history of corruption, which is like the Third World.
Find another tune or, better yet, another candidate.
This story was originally published August 15, 2023 at 12:39 PM.
