'The Least Woke City in America'

They’re still talking about the caravans: the miles-long lines of cars, their passengers waving American flags, Cuban flags, and Donald Trump banners, that painted streaks of red, white, and blue down Calle Ocho and around Little Havana, bringing much of Miami to a halt for hours at a time ahead of the 2020 election. On a recent trip to the city, those I spoke with—Republican operatives and supporters, as well as more impartial observers of Miami’s political scene—described these demonstrations vividly. The multinational, multilingual expressions of support for a Republican presidential candidate were unmistakably Miami. They displayed a flavor of GOP enthusiasm that couldn’t happen anywhere else, at least not on this scale. The demonstrators took cues from the city’s proud anti-Communist past. Some of the organizers of the events—officially known as the “Anti- Communist and Anti-Socialist Caravans for Freedom and Democracy”—included groups established to fight the Cuban dictatorship. The parades were a rejoinder to pollsters who warned not to read too much into enthusiastic displays of support for a given candidate. Miami was the site of major political change in 2020, and if you watched the car parades, you saw the indicators earlier than most. Read Full Article »