Democrats are finding it increasingly difficult to connect with Latino voters — especially Cubans, who associate left-wing politics with the communism that tore their country apart. Jesus Maria Alvarez reports on the deep rifts within his community in the battleground state of Florida
  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    Cubans tend to vote conservative. They vote that way because the Republicans have done their usual job of non-stop messaging on Democrat = Commie Socialist.

    Many fled Cuba because of castro’s communism, and they understandably don’t want that again. There’s the religious factor, as many of them are catholic and of course the republicans call the Dems “godless” or whatever too.

    There’s also this perverse psychology where people from authoritarian and repressed countries move out to democratic countries and then suddenly miss “the good old days” where reductionist messaging and “strong man” leaders just told them they were strong and flexed at every opportunity, but blamed everyone else when that strength wasn’t effective. Beat those protesters and jail them, send the military to the borders, arrest anyone who doesn’t conform. They want the authoritarian back. And the republicans offer that populist messaging of the strong man who is going to kick everyone’s ass, including the ones in your own country who don’t fit “the norm”. I’ve worked with emigrées (?sp) from both Cuba and Russia and it never ceases to both anger and baffle me that they ran away from shitty, awful dictators and then turn around and want the same thing here in the US.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      There’s the religious factor, as many of them are catholic and of course the republicans call the Dems “godless”

      As if the Republican evangelicals actually had anything to do with christianism.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I’ve worked with emigrées (?sp) from both Cuba and Russia and it never ceases to both anger and baffle me that they ran away from shitty, awful dictators and then turn around and want the same thing here in the US.

      smells to me like it’s probably related to the psychology behind prolonged abusive relationships, or people continually getting into abusive relationships.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
      1·
      3 months ago

      I think what’s missing from your analysis is that they tend to be socially conservative. As in, they don’t like the gays and the atheists.

      • Scallionsandeggs@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        This was also left out of the discussion with Palestinian voters in Michigan at the peak of the blowback for Biden’s support of Israel a few months ago.

    • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      You understand that Castro went after than more than just slave owners right? It’s super disingenuous to pretend that most of the 1.5 million people who have fled Cuba were slave owners.

      • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        3 months ago

        If they were fine with Batista being a military dictator, but drew the line at someone trying to upend his stint as one, I’m going to ask, why the military dictatorship didn’t cause them to flee every time.