Trump’s America is the worst of Castro’s Cuba with no silver lining

The death of Cuba’s revolutionary communist Fidel Castro has shone a light on the country’s government, sparking op-eds from both sides of the aisle on the legacy former leader. Many weigh the accomplishments and barbarism of the country’s Communist Party.

{mosads}In a statement following his death, Trump called Castro a tyrant and dictator. Not a totally inaccurate description, but unhelpful the two countries relationship when Cuba’s current leader is Fidel’s brother. Trump also threatened the help overthrow the current political system, a move that again, won’t help mend the relationship President Obama has been trying to repair.

Yet, at the same time that Trump is calling Castro a tyrant, he has said that flag burning should be a criminal offense in the United States. A move that is more in line with a dictatorship than a democracy. Trump has banned journalists from covering his rallies and has even threatened to jail Hillary Clinton, his opponent during.

Castro arrested journalists who dissented from his regime, and Trump has implied he would be willing to do the same.

Comments like this paint a picture of what the future of the US may look like for the next four years and allow parallels to be drawn between that of Castro’s Cuba and Trump’s America. However, the political left can argue that with the bad, some good came out of Castro’s revolution.

Cuba’s education system ensures that Cubans and even immigrants receive a high-level education all the way through college, tuition free. The country has one of the lowest illiteracy rates in the world. Trump’s America, however, will have an educational system run by Betsy DeVos, a millionaire with no educational background who wants to replace public schools with privately run charter schools and roll out a voucher program that would allow tax dollars to be used to fund private religious schools.

Castro’s government fought to end apartheid in South Africa and give freedom to black citizens who had lived under segregation and constant oppression. Trump, on the other hand, hired a proud white nationalist to be an advisor. His presidency was endorsed by the KKK and the so-called “alt-right” which I think is nothing but neo-nazis trying to re-brand themselves.

While the LGBTQ community in Cuba is seeing their freedoms improve, they don’t have full equality and for many decades suffered terrible oppression and jail time. While the US currently leads Cuba in this regard, Mike Pence, Trump’s Vice President has made it clear he plans to overturn same-sex marriage rights and remove the laws in the US that offer nondiscrimination protection to LGBTQ citizens.

Unfortunately, the list goes on, all the while, none of the good that is cited from the communist country can be matched by the Trump administration.

If the right-wing media want the American people to tremble in fear at the thought of living under Fidel Castro, perhaps it’s time they did their job and reported on the tyranny being marched into office as part of the Trump administration and its white nationalist extremism.

Dan Arel is a political activist, award-winning journalist, and author of The Secular Activist, and Parenting Without God. You can follow him on Twitter @danarel.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.