Washington Post Reporter Says Democrats Are Weak on Cuba Because Party is Sympathetic to Castro Regime
The Washington Post’s Toluse Olorunnipa argued on Sunday that Democrats were reluctant to undermine Cuba’s regime because they were sympathetic to its principles.
“They are really being led in many ways by the progressive wing of their party, and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to go hard against Cuba, against some of the things that the Castro regime may have been a part of — in part because there are some Democrats, there are some progressives, who agree with some of those things, ” Olorunippa said in an interview on CNN. “They agree with universal health care, they agree with some of the programs that were in place in a more socialist kind of society, and Joe Biden is trying to push against that.”
The Biden administration has opted against taking action in Cuba, where protests began more than a week ago. The president broke his silence on the issue on Thursday when he said he considered communism a “failed system.” He also said he would consider measures that included sending Covid-19 vaccines to the island, in addition to providing citizens with internet access. However, the administration has yet to act on either measure.
Olorunnipa suggested Biden’s comments were intended to prevent Florida Democrats from bleeding voters. Former President Donald Trump won the state over Biden in the 2020 election by more than 3 percentage points, thanks in part to support from South Florida’s large Cuban community.
Biden “is potentially trying to say we don’t want our party to head in a that direction,” Olorunnipa added. “He saw what happened in South Florida in 2020, where he did very much worse than Hillary Clinton, and Democrats really lost a lot of ground, in part, because Republicans were pushing the message that Democrats support socialism and the kind of policies that will make the United States a Third World country. Some of that was hyperbole, but it resonated with a lot of the voters there.”
Watch above via CNN.
