My journey from Republican to independent, and why I’m afraid for America’s future

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This is my story, changing and evolving as I have grown older and wiser, just like so many other Cuban immigrants who found freedom and a new life in Miami-Dade.

I had been a lifelong Republican, a financial contributor to the party, a believer in fiscally conservative policies and a supporter of a strong dollar and a strong military. I never regretted my votes.

Then, a decade ago, my political perspective changed, and I moved from R, the Republican Party, to my current status as an NPA, an independent voter with “no party affiliation.”

Today, I am more worried for our republic and our way of life than I have ever been. I fear for the future of my children and grandchildren — and yours.

As I grew older, I began to move from rightward views to a more centrist position on most social and economic issues.

As I expressed my newfound ideas, many of my dearest friends would jokingly (or not) tell me, “Don’t forget what the Cuban Revolution did to all of us.”

How could I ever forget?

Starting in 1959 and over the more than six decades following until today, the political powers in my home country of Cuba exerted control by erasing all other political parties, seizing all private businesses and lands, banning Christmas celebrations, closing all private and religious schools and deporting most of the clergy. They replaced and destroyed books that did not support a leftist ideology, confiscating all arms owned by citizens. The right to free speech disappeared and imprisonment at the government’s will became a norm.

Inflicting fear and terror became the norm and remains the norm.

In I heard from many fellow exiles who called President Barack Obama a leftist or a Communist and that we were all heading down the same path by supporting a Democrat.

History did not validate their concerns. They were, in fact, wrong.

That’s because our adopted country was built on a different set of values. Ours is a democracy that has been tested many times but never replaced.

When the time came for the people to replace Obama as commander in chief, the transition to a new leader was legal, honorable and peaceful. Obama respected our Constitution and the rule of law.

The next guy didn’t. He proved it, culminating in the evil lawlessness of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Were I to ask most people to point their bodies to the spot that represents who they are, most would point to their chest, their heart, and not their brain. That is the “American way,” with our lives based on our rights and our laws and what Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our greatest president, called “the better angels of our nature.”

Our presidential election, less than two months away, is the most important one of my lifetime.

I hope and believe that the Democratic president-elect, Kamala Harris, will lead on some issues with which I may disagree and others with which I will agree, but her actions will not diminish the values of this great republic we are so blessed to live in.

And I also believe the Republican alternative, Donald Trump, is unsafe to the values and the future of this nation.

To my fellow immigrants who now call these United States home, I say this: We are all Americans now.

May we vote with both our hearts and brains. May we vote to protect our democracy.

We are facing a critical choice. Let’s make the right one.

Michael “Mike” B. Fernandez is chairman of MBFHealthcare Partners in Coral Gables, Florida. mfernandez@mbfhp.com

Fernandez

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My journey from Republican to independent, and why I’m afraid for America’s future

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