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In the recent Plenary of the Communist Party (PCC) in Havana, Miguel Díaz-Canel once again resorted to one of the most frequently mentioned and questioned comparisons in the official discourse: the idea that "in 65 years, Cuba has achieved social results that the United States does not have".
The phrase, spoken during the official acknowledgment of the country's urban, health, and energy crisis, revealed not only the ruler's disconnection from reality but also the regime's attempt to reframing the national collapse as a supposed moral superiority over Washington.
Díaz-Canel used comparison as a rhetorical shield against the visible deterioration of the socialist system. While transportation, housing, healthcare, and the economy show signs of irreversible collapse, the also First Secretary of the PCC resorted to the old argument of "social achievements" to sustain the narrative of resistance against the "empire."
The mention of the United States was not casual: each time the internal crisis reaches levels that are impossible to disguise, the official press responds with an ideological twist aimed at reestablishing the focus on external confrontation.
On this occasion, the appeal to the Cuban "alternative model" served to avoid any mention of shortages, blackouts, inflation, or mass exodus. What the ruler presented as "social results" —without figures, evidence, or context— aims to uphold the idea of a heroic Cuba, blocked but morally superior.
However, the contrast with real life is overwhelming: hospitals lacking supplies, semi-ruined schools, entire neighborhoods without water or electricity, and a population that survives through long lines, bartering, and remittances.
More than a political argument, the comparison with the United States serves as a strategic distraction, aimed at both the Party's base and international public opinion.
While the institutions crumble, the official narrative persists in measuring internal failure against an external standard, as if the daily deterioration of the island could be relativized by invoking the ills of another country.
In reality, Díaz-Canel's statement confirms the exhaustion of a rhetoric that no longer even convinces his supporters.
When power resorts to impossible comparisons, what it tries to conceal is not an ideological difference, but a void of results. And that void—economic, political, and moral—defines Cuba in 2026 more than any foreign enemy.
The manipulation of the socialist myth and the reality of the indicators
Díaz-Canel's speech, which aims to position Cuba above the United States in terms of "social outcomes," collapses when contrasted with even the most basic international data.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Human Development Index (HDI) ranks the United States in 20th place (0.927) and Cuba in 97th (0.764).
The island is comparable in life expectancy, but lags behind in years of schooling and educational achievements. Regarding gender equality, the contrast is also revealing: Cuba boasts a high female representation in Parliament—over 55%—yet the Gender Inequality Index (GII) places it below the United States, with greater gaps in opportunities and actual participation.
The difference becomes profound when examining the indicators of freedom and civil rights.
According to Freedom House, the United States is a "Free" country, with a score of 83/100, while Cuba barely reaches 12/100, classified as "Not Free." In the Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the island ranks among the 15 worst countries in the world (165th out of 180), in contrast to the 57th out of 180 for the U.S.
The regime's insistence on these comparisons does not aim to inform, but to create an illusion of moral superiority that allows it to justify the current economic and social collapse.
In a country where hospitals lack antibiotics, blackouts disrupt daily life, and emigration reaches record numbers, the rhetoric of "social achievements" serves as an ideological sedative for an exhausted population.
Since the years of the dictator Fidel Castro, the narrative of the so-called "revolution" has relied on the idea that "suffering in the name of justice" grants political legitimacy.
Today, Díaz-Canel is trying to reactivate that narrative in the face of a situation that no longer allows for excuses: structural poverty, the collapse of public services, and the complete loss of trust in institutions.
The resort to comparing with the United States serves two functions: to keep alive the narrative of the "external enemy" and to distract attention from internal failures. In a context of total crisis—economic, energy, health, and moral—the regime invokes nostalgia for a mythologized past that can no longer withstand scrutiny.
The contrast between the actual data and propaganda not only reveals systematic manipulation but also a symptom of political weakness: when a government needs to compare itself with its historical adversary to justify its survival, it is because it has lost the ability to deliver its own results.
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