The evidence still shakes me: a young black man from a humble neighborhood in Havana, provocatively blurts out in English in front of his cell phone camera, “my president is Trump.” The counterrevolutionary press tries to make him look like one of those who in the United States faces police repression and racial discrimination, with the slogan “blacks matter too.” But those over there fight against everything that Trump represents. I bring up this incident, now almost forgotten, because in some way it’s connected to the electoral “triumphs” of figures like Bolsonaro or Milei. And from Trump himself.

The system, weak, strips away its masks: it speaks clearly and harshly. It’s more “incorrect”, more radical – insofar as it shows the roots of its thinking – than its opponents: it exposes without nuances its xenophobia, its racism, its misogyny, its homophobia, its contempt for the so-called weak, for those who don’t understand the reasons for the “strongest”. It declares himself a supremacist, promising national or racial greatness, capable of crushing any resistance, a bright future for the poor today, rich tomorrow, of the chosen nation.

It’s based on two preceding realities: an economic and social crisis, which manifests itself both in the increase in poverty and in the ungovernability of states undermined by corruption, and so-called left-wing, timid, modest, “very correct” governments. respectful of bourgeois democracy to the point of suicide and incapable of presenting and defending a new conception of it, convinced (although unconfessing) of the inevitability of capitalism, they cannot resolve the crisis like this. Precisely when simple people, intoxicated by social networks, want radical, miraculous changes that make them jump from misery to personal abundance, the left "behaves well", respects and defends the rules that previously reproduced capitalism and now they are discarded by it. Despite this, it’s accused of being an extremist.

Honesty and dishonesty, cleanliness or corruption, are presented as personal, non-ideological attributes: therefore, there’s no right or left, there are good leaders and bad leaders, strong and weak. Justice at the service of politics and fake news have designed a map where politicians from one ideological spectrum or another do not seem to be distinguished. The right uses our slogans, our gestures and concepts with impudence. But revolutionaries do not do “politics”, they do revolution. It’s not enough to declare that we are leftist: ideology is not built on words, but on actions.

People want radical changes: and fascism “proposes” them; should revolutionaries be moderate and judicious? But if they are not deeply convinced of the need for radical changes, in favor of social justice, international solidarity and peace, if they are not willing to speak, without shameful attitudes, about the mistakes of the past, and the need for a different future, and to be different themselves, in the deepest ethical sense (as Che Guevara demanded), if they are not capable of challenging imperialism, they will not be able to stop the coming fascist wave.

It’s not just the efficient use of so-called social networks - although their toxic effect affects the results - that grants the electoral victory, which can never be considered a popular victory, to characters like Trump, Bolsonaro or Milei. The essential weakness of a revolutionary will never be his poor skill on social networks; its weakness or its strength will always be in the radicality or not of its measures, in its real capacity to understand that the world needs changes that transcend the status quo, its link with the bases and its willingness to give everything, even life itself if necessary, for truth, justice and beauty. Although it’s a fact without statistical importance—although he has received some payment for saying it—the phrase of the young Cuban of humble origins that I quoted at the beginning of this article is a warning. The Cuban counterrevolution in Miami endorsed it when they voted for him and received Milei's victory with joy.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff