‘I don’t think most Americans realize what a coup is’: Edel Rodriguez takes on Trump
‘I don’t think most Americans realize what a coup is’: Edel Rodriguez takes on Trump
The cartoonist’s memoir, Worm, considers his life in Cuba, how he came to the US and the dangers of political extremes
Did you know Cuba has a Capitol in Havana that closely resembles its American counterpart? Edel Rodriguez does, and that’s one more reason why he, a Cuban American political cartoonist, was so disturbed by what happened in his adopted homeland on January 6.
Just in case anyone wasn't aware
The Cline Center is essentially the governing body that classifies coup d'etats. If the world is wondering "hey wait was that technically a coup?" The Cline Center is already writing the paper that explains why it was or wasn't, and if it was, why it was the particular flavor of Coup that it was.
So, if anyone wants to tell you that Jan 6th wasn't a coup, they're wrong. It was a "failed auto-coup."
The more you know.
(It was a coup).
I'll save you some clicks. Here is their TL;DR statement on Jan 6th:
Bottom Line: Using the Cline Center’s Coup d’État Project definitions, the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 was an attempted coup d’état: an organized, illegal attempt to intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of the Congress to certify the election. In terms of the type of coup attempt, the complex nature of this event leads it to be categorized as both an attempted auto-coup and as an attempted dissident coup, reflecting the distinctive activities of different actors involved in the event.
Okay but the difference is that the US is a flawed democracy, while Cuba at the time of Castro's revolution was a literal dictatorship
Trump is more Batista than Castro.
It's pretty much the same playbook from the USSR/Russia. They backed Castro into overthrowing Batista, who was backed by the U.S., and they want to use Trump to do the same today, on a larger scale. Putin is more than familiar with this old Cold War tactic.
Even the propaganda - Castro was able to build popular support over time with Cuban citizens. His attempts to overthrow Batista were not popular when he launched the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.
Russia is using social media and fabricated articles to attempt to build popular support for Trump, hoping he can get popular enough to overthrow the U.S. for good, even though he is an idiot when compared to Fidel Castro and has no idea what he's involved in on a geopolitical war.
A coup is something Americans are used to doing to other countries
An extremely small subset of Americans. Most Americans have never left the country and of those, most of them have no interest in being part of a coup.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
One, at the beginning of the narrative, depicts the Cuban revolution, Castro’s bearded army storming Havana atop tanks, that familiar-looking Capitol in the background.
A panel found near the end of the memoir, meanwhile, shows the US Capitol rioters charging the seat of Congress, wearing Maga caps and brandishing multiple flags: American, Confederate, “Back-the-Blue” pro-police.
Trump holding a bloody knife in one hand and the severed head of the Statue of Liberty in the other, inspired by a picture of an Islamic State terrorist?
Although he remembers being far more tuned in to nature there than in the US, he also describes being indoctrinated in school, from the red beret he wore to the Castro personality cult that was instilled by teachers.
The Mariel boatlift made things easier in some ways, harder in others, as Rodriguez now explains in Worm, which unfolds memories of tense exit negotiations with authorities; a state of limbo in a tent city; and the miraculous day when a rescue vessel came.
He realized just how big the backlash had grown when he fielded a sympathetic audience question about his safety after giving a lecture in another country with a troubled history.
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