How Pro-Trump Disinformation Is Swaying a New Generation of Cuban-American Voters
Recent Cuban émigrés, a group that Democrats once thought might help Joe Biden win Florida, have shifted dramatically toward President Donald Trump.Photograph by Gaston de Cardenas / AFP / Getty
One evening in late September, the YouTube celebrity Alex Otaola and three of his producers huddled in their Miami studio to concoct an episode of his online show, “Hola! Ota-Ola.” At forty-one, Otaola has become a popular and bitterly divisive figure among young Cubans in South Florida. Before going live, the host, who wore a turban and a black Mickey Mouse shirt, sat on the set scrolling through his phone in silence. To his right, a “Latinos for Trump” sign rested on a chair; next to it stood a cutout of the President with his thumbs up. Inside the recording booth, Otaola’s producers rushed to gather enough content to liven up his nearly three-hour-long performance. Sipping coffee from thimble-sized cups, they scoured social media in search of images, videos, and audio clips to accompany the host’s galloping script. A clipboard listed all the points Otaola was meant to hit that day: “Protests,” “Elections/Dumped ballots,” and “Pompeo/AIS”—a reference to the State Department’s newly announced sanctions against Cuba. Suddenly, Otaola walked into the booth with a bundle of flannel blankets in his arms. Inside them was a live squirrel monkey. “Her name is Karma,” the host announced, with a proud smile.