By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez – Aug 13, 2026
References to McCarthyism or Reaganomics marked eras of political or economic thought in the United States, reflecting the agenda of the ruling (or dominant) groups, even though the figures who took historical credit by lending their names to these movements did not exactly possess the intellectual caliber that would have made them worthy of such recognition.
In the first case, it was a political and ideological reaction against any idea or discourse that could be considered leftist, socialist, communist, or simply progressive—years after the Soviet Union (and not the United States) had been the principal actor in the victory over German fascism. The domestic sympathies that this reality generated, coupled with the social achievements the USSR was making despite its massive losses on the battlefield, served as a catalyst for a full-blown witch hunt across the “American Union” against anyone who was not an Aryan Republican or an ultra-conservative Democrat. During his ten years in the U.S. Senate throughout the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy was the figurehead of this abomination.
Thirty years later, the so-called Republican New Right rose to power, led by Ronald Reagan. The group that organized to bring him to the presidency aimed, among other things, to redistribute social wealth—making the rich richer and the poor poorer—on the grounds that the country was losing economic competitiveness and needed to radically transform its productive base. Social spending was drastically cut, while military spending skyrocketed. On the foreign policy front, there was also an offensive—again in the McCarthyist style—aimed at curbing the social and revolutionary movements that were spreading throughout Latin America and Africa.
We summarize these historical precedents, among others, to better understand the current era, as we arrive at what some media outlets or pseudo-academics have labeled “Trumpism.”
But even the very authors who have attempted to coin the term, and, incidentally, a “legacy,” have struggled to identify its main components—or anything resembling intellectual activity—beyond the goal of destroying societies, including the United States itself; changing the rules of the political game; corrupting the entire governmental and judicial system; turning negotiations with third parties into dialogues between mafia clans; and, once again, redistributing wealth to a select few. All of this is happening at a time when the U.S. economy is in worse shape than it was 40 years ago and faces the greatest challenge of its contemporary history: the People’s Republic of China.
It is an era of hard, unadulterated power that feels no need to forge alliances and divides the world into victors and vanquished. Perhaps the only new development is the significant influence exerted by the State of Israel, as a generator of chaos and one of its main supporters.
Beneath the rags of “Trumpism 2.0,” another phenomenon is emerging that does not deserve any “-ism” label, but which it would be useful to try to describe given the potential implications it could have for the United States itself, for Latin America, and, undoubtedly, for Cuba. The leader of this sect is someone whose name is difficult to turn into a historical term, since one would have to refer to “Marcotism” or “Rubism”—labels that image consultants do not consider appropriate.
So, let’s forget about the term and try to describe the phenomenon. “Marcoism,” even before Trump, was a way to reap political dividends for someone who showed no aptitude in business, culture, science, or any other field of human knowledge. With the single issue of Cuba in tow, Marco Rubio constructed a fictional family history to cast himself as a “victim of Cuban communism,” despite having no relatives who took up arms in the Escambray Mountains, nor in the mercenary brigade at Playa Girón, nor among those selected by the CIA to govern “the Cuba of the future.” He has, however, had ties to drug trafficking, but that is another story.
The fact is that this candidate, with no property in Cuba to “claim” and no “relatives who were victims of the regime,” took advantage of experiences such as those of the members and leaders of the Cuban-American National Foundation, who realized that there is much more to be gained by milking federal “regime change” programs in Cuba than by trying to sell used cars in Hialeah. In that analysis, perhaps his main advisor was David Rivera. His neighbor—and fellow aspirant to a seat in the U.S. Congress—shared the same confusion about the boundaries between being a legislator and a lobbyist. He ended up being charged in a trial—which Marco attended as a witness—for having allegedly represented Bolivarian Venezuelan interests within the United States.
Marco, who was finally elected to the federal Senate in 2010, spent the next 24 months courting every potential Republican presidential candidate who might emerge ahead of the 2012 elections. But he failed to catch the eye of any of them and had to return to his legislative seat, where he earned the distinction of being among the senators with the lowest attendance at the chamber’s plenary sessions and the fewest legislative initiatives—that is, bills introduced and passed—which was supposed to be his primary (and sole) job.
Despite belonging to the Republican majority in Congress, he had absolutely no success in trying to block—through legislative obstruction and backroom deals—the executive actions undertaken by the Barack Obama administration to negotiate a range of issues with Cuban authorities and reach mutually beneficial agreements for both nations, which were formalized in 22 memorandum of understanding.
Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, “Marcoismo” incorporated an anti-Trump stance into the shaping of its public image. There are quotes from the senator-candidate—now forgotten—that reveal his essence as a “turncoat,” “chameleon-like,” or adaptable to changing circumstances. At that time, his advisor Todd Harris went so far as to state: “There is a growing anti-Trump movement, and our goal has been for Marco to emerge as the leader of that movement.”
Upon tasting defeat in November of that year, Marco Rubio considered changing the course of his life and attempting to return to wielding behind-the-scenes influence, drawing on all the relationships he had already cultivated in Washington. Two very philosophical reasons stopped him: the call from the Republican majority in the Senate not to lose leadership, and the lucrative contract that billionaire Norman Braman offered his wife to cover the family’s expenses. His change of heart was not driven by the defense of an altruistic agenda, nor even by combating the threats of communism, which are a constant in his recent speeches.
Heavy contributions from the Mossad lobby—which is not exactly the Jewish lobby—also played a role.
In 2018 and 2019, “Marcoism” could not prevent millions of Cubans and Americans from visiting the island as tourists, academics, artists, athletes, or simply as human beings interested in getting to know the “enemy” they had been taught to fear since elementary school, in the corporate press, and even on Netflix. But instead of supporting and promoting Cuban business people living in the U.S.—who were already beginning to make substantial profits from cruise lines, airlines, and other more modest commercial ventures—Marco found his profits in supporting the clan of perpetual “claimants,” those who have forged thousands of documents to make judges believe they owned something in Cuba that was “snatched away by Castro”—which they claimed was sufficient justification to act like vultures, demanding bribes and threatening to take anyone who did business with the “tyranny” to court.
Put another way, “Marcoism” did not support—neither then nor now—those who created goods or services, the essence of modern capitalism, but rather those who lived off extortion, an old practice that originated in Chicago’s underworld.
The political behavior we are referring to here has a preference for back doors, for the so-called backstage in the shadows. It is not in the blood of leaders who can defend their views before crowds—among other things, because they cannot articulate a coherent discourse that the majority can share.
For this reason, Marco Rubio waited until Donald Trump was on the ropes due to the Democratic impeachment attempt in 2019 to step into the spotlight and take control of the agendas against Cuba and Venezuela. In exchange for that favor, he would prevent the proceedings against Trump from moving forward in the Intelligence Committee (or lack thereof) to which he belonged in the Senate. “We have a deal,” was the phrase repeated by the former mortal enemies, recalling the actions of the crime bosses in the television series “Godfather of Harlem,” which, coincidentally, was just beginning to be filmed at that time.
Marcoismo then formed an alliance with thinkers of the caliber of John Bolton and Elliot Abrams, who were eventually targeted by the U.S. “justice” system for lying under oath or manipulating confidential official information. The goal in those years was to justify a blockade against Venezuelan assets in the United States and abroad, which would allow them to be consolidated under the ownership of a so-called government-in-exile (Guaidó Brand), which would then funnel one percent into the pockets of those ideologues behind the heist. At that time, the plans against Cuba were clearly confrontational, but they took a back seat in the grand schemes of extortion.
“Marcotism” seems to have “risen” to another level of complexity by entering the inner circle of “Trumpism” during Trump’s second term in the presidency. In any case, since it is not the result of coherent intellectual activity, it continues to face major contradictions that make it unlikely to be recorded in the history books.
Following the Monroe Doctrine-style attack on Venezuela on January 3, 2026, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the senator-secretary-archivist-advisor embarked on a frenzied pursuit of the very issue that had previously propelled him from Calle Ocho to the National Mall: Cuba.
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Since then, a series of drafts—later converted into presidential directives—has been repeatedly issued, in which Cuba has been portrayed both as a failed state and as a major threat to U.S. security.
To avoid obstacles to his schizophrenia, the secretary has purged hundreds of State Department officials, with the aim of preventing them from questioning the “content” created by the tools of Elon, Mark, and Jeff (among others), which—through so-called Artificial Intelligence (or IS, Supine Ignorance)—have constructed arguments against Cuba that have made the majority of the U.S. population laugh at them.
By cutting off a centipede’s legs and asking it to walk, Marco has concluded that the animal is deaf. By extorting third parties to prevent trade and economic activities with Cuba—subjecting the Cuban people to the most brutal blockade in decades—he has sought to peddle the notion that Cuban authorities are inefficient. One would have to calculate how many minutes other nations subjected to similar pressures would remain standing.
But the main problem with “Marcoism” or “Rubism”—whichever you prefer to call it—remains with the spiritual leader of “Trumpism.” Faced with the profusion of anti-Cuban “strategies” and messages, questions are piling up that the subordinate apparently is not in a position to answer for the Boss:
– On what basis was the 15-day estimate made—as the deadline for the Cuban government to capitulate due to the lack of oil and essential supplies?
– Given the high level of intelligence activity, now reinforced, why has it not been possible to identify a “dissident” faction within the Cuban government?
– Despite the immense resources spent on the corporate press, digital platforms, and even prank calls, how is it possible that dates like July 11 have not sparked mass demonstrations in Cuba?
– How is it possible to leave the Cuban people “without any outlets” and not provoke a new mass exodus—the antithesis of Trumpist policies?
– How does one intend to return tens of thousands of unwanted Cuban emigrants to Havana amid an unstable situation, the aftermath of a war, or a change of government in Cuba?
– If a decision is made to allocate massive funds for a military invasion of the island, what tangible benefits will be gained in return, and within what timeframe?
– How can the “Cuban vote” be guaranteed for the upcoming midterm and presidential elections if plans are being made to repeal the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act?
– Why are the so-called “immediate changes in Cuba” now being postponed until the end of the current Trump administration?
– How does one intend to promote capitalism in Cuba if the suffocating measures also stifle new forms of production on the island?
– What impact would the weakening of Cuban law enforcement and compliance authorities have in light of the rise in crimes such as drug trafficking and undocumented emigration by third parties?
– If the People’s Republic of China is the main “threat” according to the U.S. National Security Strategy, how can such responsibility now be attributed to Cuba?
– On what grounds would the United States enter into a new armed conflict, when the confrontation with Iran can already be described as a new fiasco with no end in sight?
When confronted with some of these questions, it is common to see the secretary-advisor gesturing profusely in front of the press cameras due to a lack of solid arguments. The rapid pace of his speech, without pauses or breaks, is meant to convey intensity of thought, when in fact it is exactly the opposite.
There is a clear purpose behind the current manifestation of “Marcotism”—or perhaps “Marquism”—and that is the intention to try to erase, with a stroke of the pen or through the relentless repetition of lies, the significance of what was achieved during the 2015–2017 period and even during much of Trump’s first term. The goal is to erase minds, decapitate leadership, and destroy ties—especially among Cubans living in the United States and their relatives or acquaintances in Cuba.
“Marcoismo” also has other questions to answer in South Florida:
– If it rose in the U.S. political spectrum by capitalizing on the so-called “Cuban vote”—and a key premise for that social group is securing their residency status in the United States—how is it that all the privileges this social group has accumulated over the years are now at stake?
– On what basis is a group of “businessmen”—who have yet to prove their knowledge of and success in the Cuban market—given preferential treatment over those who have been doing business with the island for years, with the backing of U.S. law?
– Where will the city governments of Florida’s cities with the largest Cuban populations obtain the resources to provide the social services that their citizens often received in Cuba—especially health care?
– From which Cuban authorities will the Miami Hurricane Center receive future reports as hurricanes approach—reports that have been critical to natural disaster prevention on the peninsula?
– With which partner does the U.S. plan to continue efforts to rebuild the shared coral reef, which is essential to the health of Florida’s fishing industry?
– How do you plan to prevent and combat future oil spills in the Caribbean Sea in light of ongoing offshore drilling, given the absence of official expertise from Cuba?
– From which authority on the island will U.S. vessels traveling through the Florida Straits and facing unexpected accidents receive search and rescue support?
– How do you intend to ensure aviation safety in the area without regular communication between aviation authorities on both coasts?
These are just a few of the issues that Marcotism has ignored—or assumed would have a simple solution—due to the intellectual shortcomings of its leading proponents.
It will always be much easier to destroy than to build, but a major problem will be anticipating the costs. For some, this could mean the end of their political or bureaucratic careers—and, above all, a burial without any honorable words on their tombstone.
Any doubts? ask their soulmate Robert Menéndez
José R. Cabañas Rodríguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba and former Cuban Ambassador to the US.
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