donald-trump

WHY IS COMMUNISM POPULAR IN THE U.S. IN 2026? / by Jorge E. Ponce

I’m amazed that with so much documented history on the failures of every communist regime in history, there is an upsurge in sympathy in some sectors in the United States for socialism and communism. 

And make no mistake about it.  Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and Communism are all part of the same leftist propaganda to obfuscate the uninformed.  There is absolutely nothing “democratic” about socialism or communism.  If you don’t believe me, look at the official name of Communist North Korea – “Democratic” People’s Republic of North Korea.  I don’t think many people think Kim Jong Un cares much about democracy or his people.

The communist virus is being spread in our U.S. cities, in our elementary schools, in our high schools, in our colleges, in our universities, in city halls, and in the U.S. Congress.  And Americans who love our Judeo-Christian traditions, our freedoms, and our democracy cannot sit still.

Just focusing our attention at the 20th century, over 100 million killings have been attributed to communist dictators like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro.  Peaceful protesters lack the most fundamental protections in these rogue countries.  They either get long jail sentence, sent to labor camps, or suffer the ultimate punishment of death. 

But I ask myself, hasn’t Americans supporting these regimes learned of their crimes and failures in history books, schools and universities, and media outlets?

One of the answers to this question is that the rarest thing for most Americans nowadays is to read a book.  Even with the availability of audio books, most claim that they lead such busy lives that reading a book is a luxury that they don’t have.  They let others do the thinking for them. And, they forget the wisdom that an educated citizenship is necessary for the survival of freedom. 

In schools and universities, there are too many teachers and university professors who simply don’t hold any allegiance to the foundational documents of our Nation.  In fact, many hold views that are the antithesis of our Judeo-Christian values and propose the overthrow of our system of governance.  If the perpetuation of our culture lies with the younger generation’s buy-in, this challenge must be addressed immediately.  One of the best solutions is to give parents the option to send their children to charter schools that have America-First curriculums.

With the scarcity of well-read Americans, media outlets fill in the gaps.  But with most TV networks and newspapers having a left-wing bias and with soundbites lasting no longer than 1 minute, listeners and readers get their minds filled with anti-American ideologies.  And by doing so, they become the useful sheep who will purchase the rope to hang themselves. 

When you ask many of these useful idiots why they hate President Trump, they respond with illogical answers like they don’t like any kings.  But if we are to examine what U.S. presidents have behaved like kings, we have to look no further than at Joe Biden who selected his successor without consulting the wishes of the voters.  This is what kings and queens do when dealing with succession to the throne – only members of the Royal Family belong to this club.

After I – with my family – immigrated to the United States many years ago, I made it my business to tell as many Americans as I could about the hardships that I had endured in Communist Cuba.  But I realized quickly that they did not take me seriously.  For this, I do not blame them for my physical appearance then left a lot to be desired.  I was undernourished, not very muscular, and my dress attire was not very fashionable.  I can see that many must have thought that I looked like a geek.

All of this changed after I gained better English fluency, became more athletic by joining the rowing team, and dressed more fashionable.  My letters to the editor started getting published in the Washington Post and the Washington Times.  I was more outspoken in high school and college about my dire experiences with Cuban communism and communism in general. 

Nevertheless, a turning point was reached with the Vietnam War and Watergate.  With a very unpopular war and a failed presidency, many Americans felt betrayed by their government and Chief Executive.  The Viet Congs, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara gained popularity with this crowd.  Yankee imperialists – not the baseball team – became the enemy.  When many of these Americans joined the labor force, they gravitated to professorships at our colleges and universities where they could mold the minds of students into faithful followers of Marx and Hegel.

When Cuban Americans warned Venezuelans that their country could fall into the orbit of communism in the late 1990’s, they laughed and said that Venezuela was not like Cuba.  And Hugo Chavez and Maduro turned Venezuela into a failed communist state.  And after this happened, many Venezuelans were no longer laughing, but it was too late.  Many voted with their feet by immigrating to the United States. 

With so many Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans warning Americans about the communist infiltration in their country, are they listening now? The majority of Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans do not have the geeky appearance that I had when I came from Cuba.  They are highly successful businessmen/women and politicians who love America, the American Dream, and capitalism. 

The answer is that many Americans think that what happened in Cuba and Venezuela can never take place in the United States.  But they don’t have to look to the Caribbean, Central and South American to get an answer.  All they need to do is to look at the rapid deterioration of fiscal responsibility and law and order in U.S. cities like Chicago, New York City, and Seattle run by leftist mayors. 

And there is no question that the United States has made plenty of errors in the past.  Considering that humans are not infallible, this is to be expected.  In the early years of our republic, only white males who were property owners could vote in elections.  Slavery was sanctioned even though it was counter to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.  But the country corrected its past mistakes by freeing the slaves, making them U.S. citizens, and giving them the right to vote.  It later gave women and Native Americans the right to vote.  Many more errors were eliminated to make our Land the most prosperous civilization that humans have ever experienced.

Why is socialism/communism so popular with these gullible people?

You must understand that the only thing that communist dictators care about is power and how to keep it.  The first thing that they go after is religion – Marx called it the opium of societies.  There can only be one god to this cabal, and it’s the Communist Party.  Citizens’ well-being and lives are secondary agenda items.  But considering that so American values are derived from the Bible, communist agitators copy many of the Christian principles to sell their ideology.  You hear them saying that communism cares about open-borders, looking out after the poor, providing equal wages for employees, lowering prices at supermarkets and bus transportation, and eliminating the very rich.  In other words, a communist country is the utopia that many dreamed of.  Who can object to these generous options?!!!

But those who get their information from leftist fake-news outlets and publications fail to do their own research – to their detriment.  These are the people that you see yelling anti-American rhetoric at No-Kings rallies and May-Day protests.  None have stopped to think that there has not been one communist country in the history of the world that has improved the lot of its citizens. None have stopped to read about the high-crime and fraud rates in U.S. cities run by leftist mayors. 

And yet, these leftist fools want to negate the vote of 77 million Americans who elected President Trump to a second term.  Logic is foreign to them.  Following is how they think. America and capitalism are the devils that need to be abolished.  President Trump must be impeached and put to prison.  The Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution are foundational documents that need to be discarded for having been drafted by white-racist oligarchs.  President Trump is a Nazi but many support the candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Maine of Graham Platner who does have a Nazi tattoo.  Logic is not their forte!

MAGA Americans will never let this happen.  But they cannot get complacent.  They must fight back in every venue, in every media platform, in every election, in every gathering.  Every time in the past that our well-being has been endangered, Americans have risen to the challenge. 

This is one of those moments when we have to deliver and safeguard an America enshrined in the Judeo-Christian values that are found in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

REPUBLICANS, IMMIGRATION AND THE 2026 MIDTERM ELECTIONS / by Jorge E. Ponce

With the midterm elections scheduled for November 3, 2026, Republicans can’t afford to lose their majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.  If they lose the House, Democrats will be quick to launch impeachment inquiries — and the President’s “Keep-America-Great” agenda will be hampered significantly with dire consequences for Republicans in the 2028 presidential election.  The stakes are high, and it’s time to get busy.

To prevent this catastrophe from happening, Republicans must do everything possible to retain the Hispanic vote.  It’s never been more important than now, but there are some warning signs happening as we speak.

According to statistics from the 2020 decennial census, Whites make up 57.3% of the U.S. population, while Hispanics make up 19.5%[1].  Not all Hispanics in this category are U.S. citizens and can vote, but the same holds true for Whites.  Without capturing a large portion of the Hispanic vote, Republicans would be in a life-support situation to keep the majorities that they now hold in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

Hispanics supported Candidate Trump by wide margins in the last three elections.  In 2016, they gave the President 28% of their vote; in 2020, they gave him 36%; and in 2024, they gave him 48%[2].  They liked the policies that Trump campaigned on – primarily on the economy and immigration – but they have not been as supportive of Republican candidates lately. 

Two Democrat Governors – Spanberger in Virginia and Sherill in New Jersey – defeated their Republican opponents in November 2025.  And then, the unthinkable happened in December 2025: a Democrat Mayor of Miami (Higgins) got elected, making her the first Democrat in over 30 years to the city that many considered the Cuban Mecca[3].  And more recently, in January 2026, Democrat Emett won the special election to serve as a U.S. Representative for Texas 18th congressional district (which covers part of Houston).  These warning signs cannot be ignored by Republicans!

Looking at the election results in Miami, one needs to get a handle about what is triggering the dissatisfaction of Hispanic voters who turn their back on Republican candidates.  This city has large populations of Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans – most are political refugees/legal immigrants who have fled the communist regimes of Diaz-Canel, Maduro, and Ortega.  The majority support the decision of President Trump to remove the illegitimate President of Venezuela (Maduro) from power.  Nevertheless, most object to the ICE raids and deportation of immigrants that while entering the United States illegally have secured jobs, pay taxes, and have no criminal record. 

When I have questioned some of my Hispanic friends and relatives on this issue while visiting Miami, they have objected strongly to the tone that Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Stephen Miller uses when describing the President’s immigration policies.  Some think that he shows no mercy towards the plight of these immigrants and favors their immediate deportation.

From a legal perspective, Stephen Miller is not entirely wrong.  Illegal entry and reentry into the U.S. are both criminal offenses – the first is a misdemeanor and the second is a felony[4].  When liberal media outlets claim that illegal immigrants commit less crimes than native-born Americans[5], I am sure that Miller objects – based on the U.S. immigration laws, although realizing that most Americans are not very familiar with them.  Democrats also try to muddle this issue by labeling President Trump’s policies as “anti-immigrant’ policies – without distinguishing between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants.

But Democrats have been vociferous by saying that no one is above the law.  In fact, prominent Democrats in the Oval Office, the House of Representatives, and the Senate have condemned illegal immigration.  Even Senator Bernie Sanders proclaimed that the United States cannot afford to have open borders.  But all these proclamations were said in the past.  Now with Donald Trump as the 47th President, they’ve changed their tune to support open borders and protect illegal immigrants.  See video prepared by Congressman Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI-05),  which he showed at a February 11, 2016 congressional hearing with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi[6]

Even Cesar Chavez of “Si Se Puede/Yes We Can” fame and co-founder of the United Farm Worker Labor Union was strongly opposed to illegal immigration[7] – because it lowered the wages and/or jobs of legal workers.  Nevertheless, times have changed since Chavez times, and there is a shortage of applicants for many jobs in the U.S. economy triggered by the reduced fertility rate of women.

But politics is a game that is not limited to legal frameworks and statistics – optics play a big part – especially when a large portion of voters get their news from soundbites from fake-news media outlets. 

So, former President Regan signed an immigration bill in 1986 that granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants[8].  He did this because he was a compassionate person who thought that his decision would be a one-time solution to this challenge.  But as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.  Under the Biden’s administration, anywhere from 6 to 20 million illegal immigrants (depending on the sources used) crossed the southern border.

President George W. Bush also wanted to come across as a compassionate conservative and would have signed into law the Dream Act in 2001 – which would have granted permanent residency and a pathway to citizenship to children who came to U.S. through illegal means[9].  Although the law was hotly debated in the U.S. Congress, it never garnered a majority of votes for passage.

At a speech in 2010 to the American University School of International Service[10], former President Obama said the following: “Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship.  An no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.” These words are not that much different than the ones coming out from Stephen Miller or President Trump. 

But there is a “but” to President Obama’s words in the previous paragraph.  He said them during the third year of his first term in the Oval Office – when the majority of the 3 million deportations in his two terms took place.  In fact, he became so unpopular with Hispanics nationwide that most resorted to calling him the “Deporter in Chief.”

President Obama had to do some quick thinking if he wanted to win a second term in 2012.  In June 2012 – five months before the presidential election – he signed the DACA executive order that gave a 2-year deferment from deportation to children brought to the U.S. through illegal means.  This was enough for Obama to win a second term with 71% of the Hispanic vote.

To secure his legacy with Hispanic voters and to protect the Democrat candidate in the 2016 election, President Obama introduced in November 2014 the DAPA program – that allowed certain illegal parents of children who were either U.S. citizens or permanent resident a 3-year period of deferred action and work authorization[11].  However, the program faced immediate legal challenges that prevented it from ever being fully implemented.

So, what is President Trump to do now to secure Republican majorities in the U.S. Congress and protect the Republican ticket in 2028?

During an interview on February 4, 2026, Tom Llamas from NBC asked  President Trump whether it was his mission to deport everyone who came in illegally or just people who had come illegally but had committed additional crimes[12].  And this was President Trump’s response: “We are totally focused on criminals, really bad criminals. Now, you could say people that came in illegally are criminals. But I’m talking about murderers from different countries. We have 11,888 murderers that Biden and his group let into our country.” (See 00:09:27-00:09:47 (21 sec) of the  interview).

So, this says it all.  President Trump has embraced a more compassionate immigration policy – like his predecessors did.  The challenge is that he needs to communicate this new policy to the rest of his Cabinet immediately – so that they are all reading from the same sheet.  And this new policy has to be widely publicized to the media outlets before November 3, 2026.

There are other important issues that need to be addressed that impact immigration in the near future: birthright citizenship and the placement of a U.S. citizenship question in future decennial censuses. 

Like Cesar Chavez would say to President Trump: “Si Se Puede/ Yes We Can” win the midterm election in November 2026 with a majority of the Hispanic vote.

[1]  https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/politics/us-census-2020-data

[2]  https://www.axios.com/2025/06/26/trump-harris-latino-voters-2024-election-pew

[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-democrat-wins-miami-mayors-race-for-the-first-time-in-nearly-30-years

[4]  https://felonfriendly.us/crime/penalty-for-entering-us-illegally/

[5]  https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find

[6]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lnswiwqvn0

[7]  https://humanrights.fhi.duke.edu/chavez-ufw-and-wetback-problem/

[8]  https://www.salujalaw.com/when-reagan-gave-amnesty-remembering-the-1986-immigration-reform-that-legalized-3-million-people

[9]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

[10]  https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/remarks-president-comprehensive-immigration-reform

[11]  https://legalclarity.org/barack-obamas-immigration-executive-orders-daca-and-dapa/

[12]  https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-interview-tom-llamas-nbc-news-february-4-2026/

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION / Jorge E. Ponce

Andres Oppenheimer challenged, in a December 3rd op-ed, the current immigration policies of President Trump.  His one-sided arguments merit a more impartial rebuttal.

While I submitted a letter to the editor to the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, where Andre’s op-ed was published, my letter was ignored.  I was not surprised given the liberal ideological orientation of both newspapers in a city that just elected a Democrat mayor on December 9, 2025 – the first Democrat elected in 28 years.

He states that the President has labeled “all” immigrants as foreign invaders.  This is only partially true.  The President is lumping only “illegal” immigrants into this cohort.  He has no problem with immigrants who have gained entry to the U.S. by following the legal processes that include a fully-vetted protocol.  Even famous Hispanic civil rights leader and labor-movement activist Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigrants who undermined the boycotts and strikes orchestrated by United Farm Workers to improve the labor conditions of legal employees.  The legendary former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX) also advocated for an immigration policy based on legal means that aimed to have new arrivals be a benefit and not a burden to the country.

He attempts to make President Trump feel guilty by invoking the Emma Lazarus poem attached to the Statue of Liberty that reads: “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He is not the only one to do this. However, the economy of our country in 1883, when this poem was written, was different than the economy of our nation today.  There is a world of difference in a manufacturing-based economy in 1883 as compared to a 2025 economy that is based on service-oriented industries — where English fluency is a requirement and technological skill-sets are competing with artificial intelligence options.  The 2025 poem in the Statue of Liberty should be interpreted to read as follow: “Give me your legal immigrants with the skill-sets and English fluency that will guarantee them success in our American society.”

To wrap-up his argument, he invokes studies claiming that illegal immigrants on average commit fewer crimes than U.S. born Americans.  This is bogus reasoning.  Unlawful entry and illegal reentry are both criminal offenses that may result in criminal penalties, with enhanced penalties for illegal reentry. When you add both of these categories to the other crime categories, you must reach the conclusion that illegal immigrants commit the most crimes in our country. 

Some Democrats argue that the contributions that illegal immigrants make to the economy by their tax receipts on the purchases they make outweigh their cost to taxpayers.  To those who don’t do their research and who get their information from soundbites from fake-news media outlets, this argument sounds reasonable. 

But those who rely on factual information find out that the argument is wrong.  According to a 2023 report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – presented at a hearing before the House Budge Committee in 2024 – the net annual cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers is 150.7 billion dollars.  This figure is reached by subtracting the gross cost of 182 billion dollars from the 31 billion dollars that illegal immigrants pay in taxes.  So, the bottom line is that illegals pay for only 17 percent of the cost they create – a severe burden on law-abiding taxpayers.

The Democrats under the Biden/Harris administration planned to open the Southern Border to illegal immigrants from all over the world.  Their goal was to provide them with a path to citizenship — with the hope that they would vote to keep the Democrats in power in perpetuity. 

And the question remains why would the Democrats want to substitute their loyal voting bloc of blue-collar workers with illegal immigrants? And the answer can be found in former President Obama’s remarks that Americans in small towns in Pennsylvania and in the Midwest cling to their guns and religion because they are mad as hell. Democrats realized that these blue-blooded Americans would never accept their woke agenda of defunding the police, embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and radical climate-change policies, and substituting a capitalist economy with a centrally-planned socialist state (where everyone became poor except those in the political class). 

Democrats gambled that these illegal immigrants would become their steady loyalists in future elections.  The majority of these immigrants belonged to the lower socio-economic classes in their countries, lacked English fluency, had poor educational levels, and were ill-equipped to fill high-skill jobs.  To keep them happy, Democrats resorted to a panoply of welfare programs that would never allow illegals to attain the American Dream of self-sufficiency and success that those who pulled themselves by their bootstraps achieved.

But Democrats relied on the famous quote by the former minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels, that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Democrats aimed to have these immigrants treat them as their patron saints and not ask any questions – also a risky proposition.

Ours is nation of laws and enshrined in Judeo-Christian traditions.  Our immigration policy should be based on entry to the country through legal means and ensure that entrants do not become a burden to our taxpayers, pursue assimilation and English proficiency, and respect the cultural traditions of the homeland.

The United States is a beacon light to those who respect all of our laws from the very beginning – without any exceptions.  I fully embrace this ideal and so does President Trump.

Examining The Past To Understand The Present / Jorge E. Ponce

Some friends have expressed disillusionment at the disrespect that the United States has received lately from dictators, terrorist groups, free-speech detractors, and theocratic mullahs.  Most attribute this malaise to the weak foreign policies of former President Joe Biden. 

Other friends are outraged at the Biden’s economy where most Americans could hardly make ends meet because of inflation.  Despite all the feel-good, make-belief propaganda disseminated by Biden’s acolytes, Americans confronted reality when they went to pump gas for their cars, when they bought groceries at the supermarket, when they went out for lunch or dinner at a restaurant that had reasonable prices for their menu entrees in the past, when they purchased airfares for a needed vacation, when they went out to buy or lease a car, when they wanted to buy a house and the interest rates for a mortgage approached 8% – basically, when they bought any services that were affordable when President Trump occupied the Oval Office and which have started to improve under his second term.

Hispanics are the latest group to say that they’ve had enough with the failed policies of Democrats.  But this presents an “inconvenient truth” to the liberal cabal.  To discredit this switchover, they have called conservative Cuban-Americans all kinds of pejoratives – Batista sympathizers, inveterate hardliners, cavemen, reactionaries, Miami Mafia, and unauthentic Hispanics.  I’ve addressed the truth about Cuban-Americans by writing an article in my book.

Moreover, Hispanics realize instantly when politicians are only interested in their vote and not on their issues of concern.  When First Lady Jill Biden gave a speech in San Antonio, Texas and tried to ingratiate herself with Hispanic voters, she called them “breakfast tacos.” When Biden addressed a gathering of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus during the 2023 Hispanic Heritage Month, he mistook it for the Congressional Black Caucus. And some in the Democrat cabal have done the unthinkable when it comes to the Spanish language – they want to make it gender-neutral by using the term “LatinX.” Democrats ignore the basic fact that Latinos and Latinas will vote for politicians who have their backs.

It is smart when politicians learn directly from Hispanics what motivates them to vote and who resonates with their aspirations and values.  Hispanics do not react well when non-Hispanic politicians attempt to speak for them. 

Many Americans are ready to hang up their hats and say that the era of reaching the American Dream and attaining life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is over. I ask them a simple question: what have you done lately to restore freedom and democracy to the country that we all love?!!! Let the road to recovery begin with you!

It is precisely when answering my own question that I tell others what I have done lately for my country. I spent a year writing the book – and editing it with my wife’s help – “Examining the Past to Understand the Present – The Journey of a Cuba-American Refugee and What Led to His Conversion from Democrat to Republican.”

The book will be helpful to those “legal” immigrants and political refugees who have made the decision to leave their homeland. I narrate my life story in Cuba and the United States in parts 1-4 of my book.

Although the book has over sixty of my articles on many subjects ranging from politics, philosophy, civil rights, religion, Hispanics, and Cuban-Americans in part 5 of my book, I do dwell on my transformation from a Democrat to a Republican and what led up to it. I tell past friends who got annoyed with my conversion that life is a journey that cause us to learn new things, and that changes how we view the world.

But the challenge that I’ve faced is to market the book in conservative and Hispanic networks.  The conservative ones have ignored my interview requests because I’m not a public figure like the ones who publish books regularly on the Fox News network.  The Hispanic ones don’t want to hear from me because they think that my book message is antithetical to their leftist ideology. 

Make a difference.  Buy my book.  Write a review. Help out a conservative who contributed his grain of sand to “Make America Great Again!”