Another presidential election, and President Trump is again exploiting the emotions of many in the Cuban American community by promising to “liberate” Cuba with the same failed policy of the last 60 years. And Democrats are — again — too timid to really take on this third rail of politics in South Florida.
The pandering is now worse than we have seen in a long time, and the Cuban vote in South Florida is the subject of intense attention. Two recent polls have received much focus for suggesting there has been a reversal from the 45-50% of the Cuban American vote won by both Obama (2008, 2012) and Clinton (2016), and observers as different as Karl Rove and Andres Oppenheimer have suggested that Cuban opinion is returning to its anti-Communist roots of the 1960s.
But as the New York Times reported, “the secret to Florida now is that it’s a margins game,” and the Cuban vote is one of those margins. Contrary to expectations, this is an opportunity for the Biden campaign, not just a concern. No, Biden is not going to win the Cuban American vote, but he can mitigate the losing margins by speaking frankly to moderate and progressive Cuban voters about two key issues: the domestic concerns we share with most other Americans and the Cuba policy issue.
Make no mistake, many of us are disgusted with Trump overall, with the hatred he is spreading among Americans. He has also rekindled hatred in our own community, which is badly in need of reconciliation with the island after 60 years of bitterness. Many of us are appalled by Trump’s abysmal response to the pandemic, with the loss of jobs and even our homes. And we need decent health services and insurance: Witness Hialeah — the city with the highest concentration of Cuban Americans in the country also has the highest percentage of Obamacare participants.
And then there is always the Cuba issue, that perennial third rail.
Biden cannot pretend that he will be “tougher” with Cuba than the Republicans, and he cannot win any margins with Cubans by trying to be more Trumpist than the Republicans. Those who believe the big lie that Biden is a closet socialist will not be swayed by rational arguments. The “get tough” policy has hurt Cubans on the island and Cuban Americans for decades. It has also been disastrous for our own country. But many Cuban Americans are coming to terms with the reality of Cuba, as evidenced by the more than half a million trips by Cubans to the island in 2018. Since then, Trump has severely restricted travel and remittances, and he promises more of this cruelty if re-elected.
I do not know if Biden will take advantage of this opportunity. Unfortunately, much of the Democratic establishment will pressure him against doing so because they are too entrenched with the hard right of our community, despite the dirty little secret that most of them agree that our current policy is useless and that engagement is the only way forward. Let’s hope that Biden will rise to the challenge by being forthcoming with us, and with the whole country, by fully owning and advocating the policy of engagement that he began with Obama in 2014.
Manuel Gomez is a retired Cuban American health professional who lives in Miami Beach.
