When celebrities weigh in on politics, the result is usually vapid virtue-signaling and surface-level liberal talking points. But pop star Camila Cabello just offered an exception to this rule with her stirring and personal denunciation of the socialist tyranny in Cuba.
The Biden-supporting singer posted an Instagram live story responding to the protests in Cuba against the island nation's repressive, socialist regime. She attempted to explain for her largely Generation Z and left-leaning audience of millions what's really going on — and did so better than most actual Democratic politicians.
"I am Cuban-Mexican. … My mom is Cuban, lived and was born in Cuba," Cabello explained. "And so, this movement is really important to me as I still have family on the island, and I hear my cousins and my mom talk about what's going on in the island. I've heard it pretty much all my life, but it has gotten really, really bad."
"A lot of people think the protests are about lack of COVID resources and medicine," the singer went on, referencing the early media and Biden administration spin that attempted to downplay the extent to which the protests were anti-socialist in nature. "[But they are] really just the latest layer in a 62-year-old story of a communist regime and a dictatorship. [For] 62 years, Cuban people have been living under oppression."
Now, many left-wing politicians, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have denounced the Cuban regime's repression of its people. But they conveniently omitted any mention of how socialist ideology led to the tyranny Cuba now faces. It took the Biden administration days to acknowledge the failures of communism in Cuba, only belatedly doing so under massive pressure after its first several statements failed to mention this root cause. A few Democrats, such as Sen. Bob Menendez, did completely and empathically denounce socialist Cuban tyranny — yet, unfortunately, such voices were the minority in the Democratic Party.
Unlike many Democratic leaders, Cabello pulled no punches.
"What started out as a socialist ideal of free healthcare, free education, and food for all turned into present day [where] Cuban people have to wait hours in line at the grocery store [just] to come in and find that basic staples like beans and rice are 10 times more expensive than what, even what the average medical doctor in Cuba can afford," she said. "I hear a lot from family that I still have on the island talk about people on the island as literally just starving. People have to live on one meal a day."
Moreover, as I've previously explained, when economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few politicians, it gives them enormous leverage to infringe on people's basic civil liberties. Cabello pointed out the way this has unfolded in Cuba: "And, for 62 years, there has been no freedom of speech. Anybody who speaks out against the government in Cuba is disappeared and kidnapped from their families or put behind bars."
This reality is politically inconvenient for left-wing politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez who falsely promise voters that they can deliver socialist economic policies while preserving political freedom. But Cabello prioritized acknowledging the Cuban people's tragic truth over these domestic political concerns.
"The fact that Cubans for the past few decades have been willing to risk their lives trying to make it to Florida by making homemade rafts, a lot of them drowning or being eaten by sharks, really tells you a lot about the state that Cuba is in," Cabello's social media testimonial concluded.
Much to the chagrin of Democratic darlings such as Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, nowhere in the world are people fleeing capitalism in rafts. Only socialist tyranny puts people in such desperate straits.
So, as rare as political wisdom from pop stars and celebrities may be, Cabello deserves enormous credit for acknowledging the true root of Cuba's problems despite it being politically inconvenient for her side of the aisle.
This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner.
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