It\u2019s a juvenile and civically embarrassing witch-hunting contest that dragoons Cubans and non-Cubans alike into proving who among us is more anti-comunista \u2014 as in, who heroically hates Cuba\u2019s communist dictatorship and who heretically helps it \u2014 and only serves to tear apart the same 305 the Cuban community has otherwise done so much to put together.<\/p>\n
And sure enough, as we approach the Nov. 3 mid-term elections, Miami is reeling from yet another shameless and pointless round of \u00bfQui\u00e9n Es M\u00e1s Cubano? \u2014 involving everything from bakeries to Brothers to the Rescue, from faux influencers to Fidel interviews.<\/p>\n
Yes, bakeries \u2014 or the pastelito war, as it\u2019s being called.<\/p>\n
Instead of wrestling with mid-term issues like affordability and immigration, Miami is once again mudwrestling in McCarthyism.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, former TV news anchor Eliott Rodriguez, the Cuban-American Democrat challenging Cuban-American Republican Congresswoman Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar in Florida\u2019s 27th District, brought House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to Cao, a Cuban-American-run Pinecrest bakery, for a traditional cafecito and a brief convo with reporters.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez and Jeffries condemned socialism between sips. But that didn\u2019t stop online trolls, including so-called conservative “influencer” Josue Alvarez, from virally condemning Cao for hosting Democrats \u2014 who they call socialistas by default \u2014 and betraying what one called the community\u2019s \u201cpolitical boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Echo the trolls<\/p>\n
Cao owner Yvette Cao insists she\u2019s nonpartisan and was simply doing the community-minded thing \u2014 which she was, just as if she\u2019d welcomed Salazar and House Speaker Mike Johnson. The only \u201cboundary\u201d she crossed was \u00bfQui\u00e9n Es M\u00e1s Cubano? intolerance.<\/p>\n
![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792669329_0_.png\"\/)
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Matias J. Ocner<\/p>\n
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Miami Herald<\/p>\n
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (at the microphone) announcing murder charges against former Cuban leader Raul Castro at Florida International University on Monday, Ocotober 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Salazar \u2014 who\u2019s made it her tiresome trademark to gratuitously and falsely brand opponents, Rodriguez included<\/a>, as socialistas \u2014 then visited<\/a> another Cuban-American bakery in Miami, Vicky, as a stage to publicly echo the trolls.<\/p>\n So the trolls have ignited the uproar they hoped for; Cao has been bullied into apologizing. And now, less than two weeks before the midterms, instead of wrestling with issues like affordability and immigration, we\u2019re once again \u2014 like Miami clockwork \u2014 mudwrestling in McCarthyism.<\/p>\n But Rodriguez isn\u2019t innocent, either. This week he released a retaliatory ad<\/a> that attacks Salazar, herself a former TV news journalist, for \u201ccozying up\u201d to then Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in a 1995 interview.<\/p>\n