Who is Castro?

I never imagined that I would ask this question until his death.

For me, and most of the baby boomer generation he was the man who symbolized the struggle against oppression and imperialism. He was the man who stood for the struggle against apartheid. He embodies how people can achieve freedom.

I knew that for many Americans he was the enemy given the Cold War divisions and national interests. But I never realized that for the younger progressive generation he was viewed as a dictator.

Some posts about his position as to gay rights surprised me. It is an anachronism. Judging people in retrospect according to issues and causes that were not current decades ago seems strange.

It is true that many of what Castro, the head of state, did go against what I stand for. In fact they go against what he stood against too. He said it himself

"Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone ... actually knew how to build socialism. ... Whenever they said. ‘That’s the formula,’ we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician.” Castro in 2005.

But I could make the separation between the values that were behind his revolution and the compromise that smudged his life as a player in the game of nations.

“We are now being advised about Cuba by people who have supported the apartheid regime these last 40 years,” said Nelson Mandela on a visit to Havana in 1991. “No honorable man or woman could ever accept advice from people who never cared for us at the most difficult times.”

Africa is not conflicted about Fidel Castro’s legacy. When Africa was a battleground between the Cold War powers, Cuba emerged as a friend of liberation movements. Cuba’s involvement in Africa went beyond the ideological standoff between right and left to a real helping hand: sending soldiers, doctors and teachers when post-colonial Africa was perhaps at its most vulnerable.
My position is not different from Mandela and most of African leaders.
http://qz.com/846337/cuban-leader-fidel-castro-was-a-liberation-icon-in-africa-and-remained-committed-to-the-continent/

The separation in opinions I witnessed within the progressive circles seems generational, history is not read in depth and the world is viewed in black and white.

Here are some of his more memorable quotes: 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/26/a-revolution-is-not-a-bed-of-roses-fidel-castro-in-his-own-words

• I am not interested in power nor do I envisage assuming it at any time.” - In January 1959, when Castro’s rebels toppled Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista

• I began the revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I would do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.” – On the revolution in 1959
• A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” – Castro in 1959.

• The US government says that a socialist regime here threatens US security. But what threatens the security of the North American people is the aggressive policy of the warmongers of the United States ... We do not endanger the life or security of a single North American family.” -May 1961 (shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion)

• We have to stick to the facts and, simply put, the socialist camp has collapsed.” – Castro in 1991.
• Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.” - July 1991, on the fall of communism in Europe.

• These changes [the opening to international tourism, foreign investment, some small business and family remittances] have their social cost, because we lived in a glass case, pure asepsis, and now we are surrounded by viruses, bacteria to the point of distraction and the egoism created by the capitalist system of production.” – Castro in 1998.

• Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone ... actually knew how to build socialism. ... Whenever they said. ‘That’s the formula,’ we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician.” Castro in 2005.

• We are not a developed capitalist country in crisis, whose leaders are going crazy looking for solutions amidst depression, inflation, a lack of markets and unemployment; we are and we must be socialists.” – Castro writing in one of his “reflections,” or newspaper columns in 2008.

Trump is not a fool!

Trump is smart marketer and a good strategists.

He was able to tap into a worldwide trend. His tactics were part of his strategy.
He gained the ultra right vote, but it was not his main strength. It was a side win tactics.
At the end of the day, more Latinos and African Americans voted for him that for the last Republican candidate, and ''college moms'' voted for him.
His strategy paid and the fools are the political establishment and the media who remained in their towers, separate from the beat of the street.

Today I read good post elections analysis Facebook post that said

Don't fool yourselves about the nature of the people who did vote Trump in.  Its not a big shift towards racism, sexism, etc.. Because if you look at the social polling data more that 60% of the population are generally pretty in the middle on social issues.

Look at the breakdown not state to state, but county to county. Its clear who voted him in, its a quarter of the population. Its the people in the more rural areas who got passed by by the economic recovery experienced in the more urban centers. Its people who are stuck in the middle between affordable care and medicaid. Its the people who are really a class of working poor, working constantly to try and pay off debt that will never clear.  

Just like Brexit this was a cry for help. 

The fact that people are still baffled by how this happened and that these people are still invisible to most progressives is part of the problem. On the other hand these people probably would benefit the most from progressive socialist policies, but that's not the nature of populism in the US it tends to take a more right wing form.

It is a good analysis. But it misses on the international dimension of the phenomena.
Ultra right in Europe is also populist and digging into the same disenfranchisement.
It is the rise of National Socialism who combines socialist economic policies with ultra conservative social issues.
It is the failure of the left to address the issues of concern to their historical base.
It is the progressive youth and women losing heart and faith with the left because today they talk and look like bankers and lawyers. They are  isolated in their tower of pedantic cliches.
Bernie was able to reinvigorate the base because he talked with passion in black and white.

Trump won because he talked about the issue of the average person with passion and in black and white.
He looked like a real person. He behaved like a real person people could identify with.
He is no fool.
The political establishment and the media are the fools because they did not and still are resisting to understand the '' why '' Trump was elected.