Truth is, 2020 Democrats don’t know the pain of socialism. I do, I lived it | Opinion

As a Cuban-American who has spent half of my life in the United States of America and the first half in Cuba, people always ask about memories of my childhood in Cuba. I always respond that I had a happy childhood because back then, I did not know any better.

Now I am certain socialism ruins young children’s chances of a better future, starting with taking away their fundamental right to the freedom of thought. For instance, while 6-year-olds in the United States dream of meeting Mickey Mouse in Disneyland, Cuban children chant communist slogans in school, praising Che Guevara and Fidel Castro without knowing the extent of the evil these men caused. This type of indoctrination continues through adulthood until you die or break free and escape the regime.

I have seen firsthand the suffering and devastation of socialism’s false promises of an equal and fair society for all. The only truth about socialism is that it is an enabler of misery and death. I was a child, but I will never forget the crisis of 1994 when thousands of balseros men and women with rafts, out absolute desperation, threw themselves into the dangers of an angry sea in hopes of a better future in the United States. Many of them left their families behind, some of them didn’t survive.

Over the years, the ideology of socialism has spread like a cancer in places such as Latin America with dictators like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Recently we have seen glimpses of it inside the Democrat Party with figures like 2020 hopeful, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who advocate for the ineffective, $93 trillion Green New Deal. This political shift toward a destructive ideological cause as a platform for the 2020 elections is a radical path for the Democrat Party, which previously worked with Republicans during the Cold War to defeat the Soviet Union.

It is particularly disturbing that Democrats are pushing for socialism at home when the world is seeing its disastrous end result abroad in Venezuela. At this moment, millions of people are living without power and starving in Venezuela, which has the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. For the past two years, President Trump’s ambitious and successful agenda has led to a booming economy in the United States. In matters of foreign policy, President Trump has made it clear to the world that the United States will not stand idly by as socialism wreaks havoc across Venezuela in the same way that it has done in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere. Capitalism is and will continue to be the way of the future.

I grew up in a socialist country and have now spent the second half of my life in the United States, and the difference is clear. Nothing is worse than socialism. While Republicans champion opportunity and freedom of the individual, Democrats welcome the resurgence of socialism. In 2020, the choice is clear. Those who vote for the Trump agenda will be voting for the freedom and opportunity to achieve your American Dream.

Yali Nunez is Director of Hispanic Media for the Republican National Committee

This story was originally published March 23, 2019 at 4:25 AM.