While the Cold War drew to a close nearly three decades ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union, overt hostility to social democracy remains pervasive in the United States among its elites, but especially in nations once referred to as the Third World. These developments across the Americas are less astonishing than they might appear. More recently, Brazilian Minister of Culture Regina Duarte has made headlines for minimizing the crimes of her country’s military dictatorship, claiming that “there has always been torture” and “humanity has never stopped dying.” (Her predecessor, Roberto Alvim, was dismissed after praising Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.) Police claim the gunman heard voices, but Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel has called the attack an act of terrorism.
On April 30, a forty-two-year-old man from Aubrey, Texas, was charged with assault with intent to kill after opening fire on the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C. As several outlets have pointed out, many of these demonstrators have ties to Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, whose family is among the country’s most generous donors to right-wing causes. In the last month, demonstrators from Illinois to California have raised signs equating social distancing and lockdowns to incipient communism. A specter is haunting the United States - at least in the febrile imagination of its anti-quarantine protesters and their billionaire backers.
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