Did Trump strike a blow against imperialism in Cuba? Hahaha.

is it me or do liberals have no fucking clue how to attack a right-wing fascist other than incoherently spitballing anti-left redbaiting pic.twitter.com/myXwjTPO8W

— Michael Curry🏳️‍🌈☭ (@mcurryfelidae07) September 29, 2016

Except that's not what the story is, and there's nothing incoherent about it.

Trump's henchpeople in Cuba in 1998 weren't heroically braving the unjust embargo. They were acting on the belief that the Clinton administration might be moving to lift the embargo, and trying to get a jump on the other gangsters before it happened. The program was not to support the Cuban people but to extract rent from them by operating casinos, infusing new blood into Trump's failing hotel business and helping to turn the island back into the gigantic brothel it was in the 1950s.

And as he was doing it he was loudly proclaiming to Miami's old Cuban fascists what a fervent anti-Castro person he was and how he would never stand for collaborating with those filthy Communists:

The payment by Trump Hotels came just before the New York business mogul launched his first bid for the White House, seeking the nomination of the Reform Party. On his first day of the campaign, he traveled to Miami where he spoke to a group of Cuban-Americans, a critical voting bloc in the swing state. Trump vowed to maintain the embargo and never spend his or his companies’ money in Cuba until Fidel Castro was removed from power....

“As you know—and the people in this room know better than anyone—putting money and investing money in Cuba right now doesn’t go to the people of Cuba,’’ Trump told the crowd. “It goes to Fidel Castro. He’s a murderer, he’s a killer, he’s a bad guy in every respect, and, frankly, the embargo must stand if for no other reason than, if it does stand, he will come down.”

So no, telling this story isn't red-baiting. Calling Trump out on Cuba is no more "anti-left" than calling out Meyer Lansky. Read the fucking article, Curry.

American in Havana, 1953. Photo by Constantino Arias, Wikimedia Commons, via Mother Jones.

Zandar properly stresses another aspect, the characteristic Stupid Trump Trick of covering up his lawbreaking under the guise of charity.