Flatfooted Democrats let Florida Republicans steal the spotlight on Cuba. Part 1 | Editorial

Florida’s top-ranking Republicans were center stage Wednesday night during a live town hall broadcast nationwide on Fox News.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar all spoke in unison about what to do next about Cuba as local protesters, in solidarity with those on the island, gathered for a second week outside Versailles restaurant in Little Havana.

Clearly, Republicans grasp the historic significance of the street demonstrations in Cuba — a crack in the armor of the Castro-inspired government. Real change can come of it. The Republican plan is to show support for the Cuban people, keep the pressure on the island government and find a way to get internet service to the 11 million Cubans on the island so they know the international community supports them.

Sounds like a plan, a good one.

“The Cuban people are not demonstrating because of lack of vaccines or other side issues, they want to see a new Cuba,” DeSantis told Fox’s Sean Hannity.

Thank you, governor, for getting it. (And yes, we get there is presidential politics at play here, too.)

Earlier in the day, the chairs of the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Republican parties held a news conference at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Hialeah Gardens to join in a call for action. And at a rally in Tamiami Park, the Republican spirit was intense.

It’s become obvious that the local and national Republican parties have solidly appropriated the latest Cuba crisis — made theirs, and theirs alone, apparently.

Where are Florida Democrats? With some exceptions, they have been caught flat-footed. Without a vigorous Cuba playbook, they have failed to publicly unite on this issue. While Republicans are in full stereo mode, Democrats are still mired in static and searching for their channel.

As the base of the party seemed tentative to come forward, the “progressive” wing of both the local and national party jumped to fill the vacuum with their own statements.

Instead of calling for an end to the repressive Cuban government, they called for an end to the U.S. embargo on the island. Instead of making the Cuban government of Miguel Díaz-Canel the bad guy, progressive Democrats turned the tables and placed the blame on the U.S. embargo — just like Díaz-Canel.

We would call their statements off-message, but almost two weeks after anti-government protests erupted across Cuba, Democrats didn’t even have a message to be off of.

It all began with Congressional members U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont who said they supported the protests, but called for an end to the “absurdly cruel” embargo on the island. They were echoing leaders of Black Lives Matter — and adding to a party rift. It’s understandable such miscues happen nationally, but locally, they should not.

Last week, the little-known Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida barged into this leadership vacuum and issued its own statement, also denouncing the embargo.

That prompted Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz, the Cuban-born former mayor of Miami, to write a strong and unequivocal op-ed published in the July 22 Miami Herald, blasting the “progressive” groups within the party.

“Instead of expressing outrage at the human misery of thousands of Cubans, there are many, including the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, who failed to condemn these flagrant abuses of human rights, and instead have chosen to endorse the big lie promoted by the dictatorship — it is the embargo and Americans who are to blame for Cuba’s dismal state of affairs,” Diaz wrote.

“The leaders of the Democratic Party understand the evils of the Cuban communist dictatorship. The Florida Democratic Party has never taken a position in support of removing the embargo,” he added.

Good to hear — finally — but that train has left the station, and Republicans were all aboard. Some Florida Democrats have expressed frustration in getting out their own focused message that they support the Cuban people.

“I have said that the embargo should be a conversation, but not now. What is happening in Cuba is not about the embargo, it’s about the repression of human rights, ” Florida Sen. Annette Taddeo, D-Kendall, told the Editorial Board. Exactly.

Other Democrats are grappling with why the party has fumbled its response to the crisis in Cuba. State Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, said Democrats have allowed Republicans to control the narrative “on the eve of another election cycle” in 2022. He’s right.

President Biden hasn’t helped with his lukewarm response to the protests. “I think the president should’ve flown down here for a day,” Pizzo told the Board. Definitely.

However, on Thursday, while he rightly — and predictably — condemned “the mass detentions and sham trials” of anti-government protesters in Cuba, he went a step further and ordered sanctions against Gen. Alvaro Lopez Miera, who is in charge of the Cuban military and a special forces unit involved in the violent crackdown. He was added to a blacklist of “specially designated nationals” whose assets are frozen and who cannot enter the United States.

We’re not naïve. Republicans in Miami see this as an opportunity to criticize Biden’s administration’s lukewarm response to the Cuban crisis, which should be a bipartisan issue.

But come election time, Democrats in Miami-Dade will bellyache about “reactionary” Cubans favoring Republicans. They’ll lament how they need to make inroads with Hispanics. Well, here was a perfect opportunity not only to make headway with Cubans, but with other Latinos whose countries will be affected by what happens in Cuba.

The truth remains that no political party stumbles and misfires more often on the issue of Cuba than Democrats. It goes all the way back to the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 with John F. Kennedy’s decision to withhold U.S. power during the invasion.

Sadly, it continues today.

Florida Democrats, Part 2: Why can’t they win?