Let’s be honest about what Cuba is: a disgusting, repressive regime that owns the press, silences dissent, jails political opposition, and stages fake elections to cling to power. Miguel Díaz-Canel is not elected, he is installed. The Cuban people have no real say in their future.
When Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) and Jonathan Jackson (D., Ill.) met with Miguel Díaz-Canel, they didn’t engage in diplomacy. They handed a brutal dictatorship a propaganda win.
While the flotilla of left-wing activists were treated to comfort and uninterrupted power, the Cuban people were suffering through nationwide blackouts, food shortages, and fear. Families sat in darkness while American activists who sympathize with the regime were shown a carefully staged version of reality.
And the media? A disgrace. Watching Kristen Welker allow Díaz-Canel claim he is “elected” without a word of pushback was unacceptable. It gave the brutal dictator a platform to spread his propaganda while real Cubans, who would be imprisoned for speaking freely, remain voiceless.
Legitimacy is exactly what Cuba’s regime craves. The Left is all too eager to deliver it.
When Díaz-Canel claims he is “elected,” it is not just misleading, it is propaganda. The Cuban people do not choose their leaders. The regime does.
Ordinary Cubans ration food, endure repression, and live under constant surveillance. Meanwhile, foreign visitors are shielded from that reality and then return home to speak about “engagement” and “dialogue,” as if they witnessed the truth.
They didn’t see the truth. I know what that truth looks like because my family lived it.
My uncle was imprisoned for 17 years for speaking out against the regime. Seventeen years stolen. My aunt was part of Operation Pedro Pan, sent alone to the United States as a child under the false promise of temporary separation. She was 12. She left her parents believing she’d see them soon. She didn’t. Letters were censored and never arrived. Communication was severed. Reunion came only in adulthood.
My mother was just ten years old when she was forced into the regime’s so-called “education” system. It was one that the regime designed not to teach, but to indoctrinate and exploit. Children were pushed into labor programs and camps under the guise of building a socialist future. The circumstances created such overwhelming despair that my mother remembers one child picking up a brick and shattering his own arm for a chance to be sent home.
Millions of Cubans have suffered. Millions of Cubans have fled. Millions more remain trapped — so desperate for freedom that they build makeshift vessels and risk their lives crossing 90 miles of open ocean.
The tragedy is the regime’s failure and how often it’s enabled. When Democrats, activist groups, and segments of the media give Cuban officials a platform to repeat their talking points unchecked and unchallenged, they’re legitimizing propaganda without addressing the root cause: a broken system that has failed its people for decades.
Whether it’s in the media or from members of Congress, those who give these lies a platform not only obscure the truth, but also prolong the suffering of millions of Cubans who live with the consequences every day.
Danielle Alvarez was a senior advisor for Trump campaign. She is now a senior advisor at the RNC and a partner at Mercury.