From Cuba to California: The Predictable Incompetence of Karen Bass
In the world of political leadership, we often expect competence, but sometimes a leader's history and ideological leanings can foreshadow their failures. This is the tale of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose approach to the California wildfires has drawn considerable scrutiny. When we examine her background—particularly her alleged communist ties and multiple trips to Cuba—her current mishandlings feel less like a shock and more like a foregone conclusion.
Karen Bass’s communist connections are not exactly hidden. According to The People's Voice, she made approximately fifteen trips to Cuba in the 1970s—not as a tourist, but as an active participant in the Venceremos Brigade. This group aimed to support Fidel Castro's Marxist-Leninist regime by radicalizing young Americans, immersing Bass in an ideology that has historically struggled with effective governance and crisis response.
Bass's involvement with the Venceremos Brigade also links her to the May 19th Communist Organization (M19), a group infamous for domestic terrorism. M19 members, including Susan Rosenberg—who bombed the U.S. Capitol in 1983—had connections with the Brigade. While Bass hasn't been directly tied to any violent acts, her association with these radicals highlights her deep ties to extreme left-wing ideologies that promote change through violence.
When wildfires ravaged California, the situation called for immediate and effective leadership. Instead, Mayor Bass chose to attend the inauguration of John Dramani Mahama, a known socialist, in Ghana. Talk about priorities. The National Weather Service had issued wildfire warnings days before, and the Los Angeles Fire Department had openly asked for more resources. Their predicament worsened when Bass slashed the LAFD budget by over $17 million this fiscal year. That cut left firefighters with fewer resources and less capacity to manage the unfolding crisis.
To see why Bass’s shortfalls aren’t exactly surprising, look at Cuba, where the same flawed ideology endures under Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, Cuba’s response was criticized for its sluggishness and focus on propaganda rather than practical aid. But these issues aren’t new: Fidel Castro’s government botched relief efforts for Hurricane Flora in 1963, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes, due to bureaucratic hurdles and poor preparation. When Hurricane Kate struck in 1985, the government evacuated people but dragged its feet on recovery, redirecting resources to political projects instead of immediate relief.
Fidel Castro’s regime also stumbled through economic crises such as the “Special Period” in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Food shortages, blackouts, and a near-collapse of healthcare revealed the deep inefficiencies of centralized planning—problems that still hamper disaster responses under leaders who cling to the same ideology. Given all of this, when Castro died in 2016, Karen Bass referred to his death as a "great loss." Great loss?! It's almost laughable if it weren't so tragic. Here we have Bass, mourning the loss of a dictator whose governance was marked by oppression, economic mismanagement, and a blatant disregard for human rights.
A signature move of communist regimes is to blame external forces for internal problems. Fidel Castro infamously pointed to the U.S. embargo as the cause of Cuba’s chronic economic failures, conveniently overlooking his own role. Today’s Cuban leadership carries on that tradition, and Karen Bass appears to follow a similar playbook: rather than owning up to her mismanagement of the wildfires, she attributes the chaos to climate change or broader systemic issues. This deflection mirrors a common tactic in communist-led governments, where self-critique is rare and scapegoating is abundant.
Given Karen Bass’s ideological history and her engagement with communist movements like the Venceremos Brigade, her performance as mayor seems less like a random anomaly and more an inevitable outcome. Communism, with its emphasis on collective dogma over individual competence, has left a trail of mismanagement in the face of crises. From Cuba’s botched hurricane responses to the Soviet Union’s unthinkable failures at Chernobyl, the pattern remains consistent: whenever ideology trumps practicality, disaster is often close behind.
Ultimately, the mismanagement of California’s wildfires under Karen Bass reveals deeper issues than simple governmental oversight. Her history suggests a predisposition toward policies and attitudes that have long proven incapable of handling emergencies. Not every choice Bass makes may stem directly from her past, but it offers a lens through which her leadership style—and its consequences—can be understood. Given that track record, it’s hard to say we weren’t warned.