By Jeffrey Blehar
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Ladies and gentlemen, joy is back again. While the rest
of America was nervously eyeing shipping reports from the Strait of Hormuz,
some of the worst people you know decided the time was right to draw the media
world’s attention to the one target on Marco Rubio’s (s)hit list the United
States hasn’t used military force against yet: Cuba. And what fantastic
timing they have chosen.
No doubt concluding that it’s too late for Venezuela or
Iran, the infamous communist “anti-war” group Code Pink has decided it is time
to raise awareness about the looming imperialist threat posed by the United
States to its humble authoritarian neighbor. (The United States has choked off
Cuba’s oil supply in recent months via tariff threats.) To that end, it gathered together the West’s most annoying young leftists —
among the American subset Hasan Piker, Isra Hirsi (daughter of Ilhan Omar), and
the sartorially obnoxious editor of Current Affairs, Nathan J. Robinson
— for a big junket to Havana. They were going there to raise the consciousness
of the online masses, to see just how oppressed this beautiful nation is by
Uncle Sam, and presumably to also engage in some light third-worldist cosplay.
The “Nuestra America Convoy” was also theoretically
supposed to bring humanitarian supplies and food along with it — a page ripped
from the Gaza Flotilla playbook, in other words. But its real purpose — as far
as the participants were concerned, at least — was to give hundreds of
well-connected and compensated influencers access to the creature comforts the
Cuban regime historically doles out to its privileged guests: being carted
around to restaurants, concerts, and VIP meetups, put up in Havana’s Gran Hotel
(the city’s lone five-star lodging), and given carefully guided tours. Why, the
brave convoy members were even given a special
performance by “anti-colonialist” Northern Irish rap-rock act Kneecap! (I
had to double-check here to make sure this wasn’t a case of the communist
regime momentarily reverting to its natural preference for torture.)
And because these “influencers” are, to the last of them,
obnoxious self-promoting narcissists, the story of the visit is no longer about
the Cuban regime or an oil embargo. It’s about the hilariously oblivious
poverty tourism of the leftist influencer class. Witness pampered pink-haired ladies as they snap photos of
unemployed Cubans from the comfort of their air-conditioned tour bus! Witness
Hasan Piker, off to visit the barrios of Havana while
dressed in a $690 short-sleeved beach shirt!
Things got even more gloriously ironic when power went
out across almost the entire island of Cuba on Saturday — except for the
one hotel in Havana that Nuestra America Convoy VIPs were staying at. The
Castroite regime called forth security reinforcements to guard the safety of
its foreign guests, should rampaging protesters have decided to converge upon
the one place in the entire city left with internet, air-conditioning, and
electric light. And Hasan Piker, podcasting with flawless internet from one of
the few functioning hotspots on the entire island, understood whom to blame: America.
“The [U.S.] government makes it illegal for us to stay where we want in Cuba.
We have to stay in five-star hotels.”
Current Affairs mayordomo Nathan J. Robinson, always the refined aesthete, found the
proper framing as he adjusted
his cravat: “The blackout here in Cuba is eerie and disturbing. Whole
streets with zero light, every window dark, and then you see shapes moving in
the darkness and realize people are trying to live their lives. I cannot
believe how cruel this US policy is. We could stop this.”
I have an alternative proposal, Nathan: First you leave
your luxury hotel, and then the Cuban regime can end censorship, empty its
jails of political prisoners, and hold free and fair elections. But of course
accepting that deal would defeat the point for leftists of supporting Cuba,
which has never been about helping the Cuban people as actual people —
about improving their measurable quality of life — but rather about the victory
of Marxist protagonists against capitalist antagonists.
Until then, I hope the power stays on for all those lefty
influencers on their Cuba junket, even as it unavoidably fails for the actual
citizens of the country they’re touring. It feels like orthodox Marxism to me: “From each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs.” May their podcasts all stream
seamlessly: These people will only humiliate themselves further if given the
opportunity. But they should remember why they are allowed to speak while all
around them are forced into silence. Not just because God is a punishing
comedian who specializes in gallows humor, but because they are being paid to
perpetuate a fraud whose widespread suffering they are perfectly capable of
seeing.
Do I Have to Talk about Joe Kent?
No, I don’t. You know the story already. Last week Joe Kent
resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. (Bet you didn’t
know it even existed — but that’s a gripe for another day.) My editor in chief
has already spoken eloquently enough for me in the above link. So I’m moving
on, on the grounds of “Obvious Troll Is Obvious” if nothing else.
This was the sort of lunatic result Trump was destined to
provoke from the moment he forced a GOP Senate to confirm Joe Kent, who despite
his service record always came across as Alex Jones with a more chiseled jaw
and less mature hairline. Put bluntly, the only reason Trump
ever supported this guy is because he “looked the part” and was running in 2022
to primary a Republican (Jaime Herrera Beutler) who had voted to impeach him in
2020. That didn’t work out well, either in Washington State’s third
congressional district or in Washington, D.C.’s bloated post-9/11 alphabet soup
counterterrorism octopus. Now it’s up to Tucker Carlson to reap the poisoned
fruits of promoting a madman to nominal public responsibility, and the Trump
administration to regret sowing its seeds in the first place.
I will only point out that every aspect of Joe Kent’s
political career has been predictable from start to finish (and now,
afterlife). It is a tale of serial failure — fumbling away a Republican
congressional district (twice!)
due to crankishness, scoring an administration gig as an act of pity/patronage,
resigning in a public huff once better options surface — and Kent has naturally
cultivated the sorts of “outsider” media relationships to match. (See: the
entirely predictable circle of podcast appearances Kent is now making.)
That’s it, that’s all. Well, that and this: I’d also bet
a shiny nickel that Joe Kent has, since the day he was confirmed in July 2025,
been leaking like a sieve to the same sorts of people whose shows he is now
appearing on. Trump always hires the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment