Four members of the conservative activist organization Turning Point USA documented the “harsh reality” of life in Cuba in a recently released video.
“This is what it’s like to live without a U.S. Constitution,” Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson said in footage published on Monday.
“My takeaway is I have never been happier to be an American. Everything that you have seen about Cuba is a lie.”
Johnson joined three other Turning Point USA staffers on a visit to the communist nation.
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According to Johnson, idyllic media portrayals of Cuba as a “gorgeous Caribbean wonderland” fail to capture the suffering socialism has wreaked on the country’s citizens.
The four Turning Point USA activists witnessed a startling lack of basic infrastructure and spoke with distressed Cubans who criticized the economic state of the nation.
Footage taken by Turning Point USA showed hours-long waits for gas, garbage strewn across city streets, a dismaying lack of food options in markets and no fresh food products.
“Look around you. The effects of socialism are everywhere — crumbling infrastructure and disgusting living conditions,” Johnson said in the video.
“That is what socialism has brought to Cuba. Maybe the socialists in America should take a short trip, a short 90 mile trip, and come here and say they want this in America.”
At one point in the video, Johnson asked a Cuban man for his opinion on socialism.
“Now, for us, it’s not good,” the man said.
Another Cuban man said his country was “very sh*t.”
“Don’t have petroleum for bus in Cuba, for cars, for driving, for nothing,” he said.
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According to Turning Point USA, the four team members were eventually asked to leave the country by Cuban officials.