[chaorace]

The current U.S. position towards Cuba continues to puzzle me. Their geopolitical stance is nowhere near being on the same level as North Korea or Iran. Given Cuba's proximity and relative productive capacity you'd think that we'd be easy allies if only they hadn't upset a bunch of dead politicians 60 years ago.

[reducesuffering]

While Florida was/is a swing state in US elections, whoever secures the ex-Cuban vote wins a massive amount of electoral votes. Republicans are fine jockeying against Cuba "because communism", and so the Democrats are in a pickle in that the right thing to do would be to improve relations with Cuba but it guarantees to hand Florida over to the Republicans who will then have the presidency and proceed to treat Cuba as-is.

If Florida remains reliably Republican anyway, it's possible the Democrats may get enough electoral support from the rest of the country to still win future presidencies and ease up on Cuba without caring about the Florida ex-Cuban vote.

[topkai22]

Yeah, this is basically the answer- Cuban American lobby is solidly against the current regime. Less so than they used to be, but there are still plenty of voices strongly opposed to normalization and few strongly for it.

Without a strong counter vailing lobby there is little reason for politicians to risk alienating the Cuban bloc to normalize relations with a fairly repressive government that still remains broadly anti-American and opposed to US interests.

[1123581321]

Cubans who emigrate vote relatively conservatively, so perhaps it’s in the interest of the Democratic Party to make it more attractive to stay if most existing anti-Cuba Floridians are not marginal/swing voters.

[seniorivn]

They are a hostile dictatorship, with zero resources but their oppressed people. Why would USA be interested in allying with them?

[atlas_hugged]

Their government is hostile like a friend’s chihuahua. It will make it known it doesn’t like you, but it ain’t going to do anything about it because it can’t.

The people on the other hand are truly wonderful human beings that would love to be able to have visitors or visit other countries themselves.

Who cares if some politicians feelings get hurt. People want to be free to do what they want in a supposedly free country.

[energy123]

The US should oppose expansionist dictatorships that attempt to alter the status quo via forceful revisionism. That's Russia in Ukraine and China in Asia.

I don't see how opposing Cuba achieves anything in the US interests.

[incahoots]

What difference does its government make when you purposely employ collective punishment via embargo?

For a country that prides itself as “democracy driven and human rights protector” it sure seems just as hostile as the supposed acting government.

[eZpZpi]

Current position is easily explained; most active US voters are >50 yo and elect 50+ year old pols.

All of those 50+ year olds were weened on “Cuba bad.”

Leadership is mostly ossified and low effort adults who rarely update their opinion; they just engage in their routine, recite the spoken pageantry, idle about like brain dead tourists of reality and die down the road.

Murican Civic Life has taken hold of the same biology religion stumbled upon. Time to “blink” and accept physical statistics just keeps enough stuff on shelves the majority don’t riot and mv /human/story/mode /dev/null

[bobthepanda]

Also Florida is a large swing state, and the Cubans who have fled there are the ones who hate the current government.