I have friend who’s thankfully is open minded enough to not completely disown me for daring to go against his world views of Cuba. He grew up in Cuba(his family were not landowners) and moved to NA in the late 90s. He still has family in Cuba now and visits often but he is adamant his family, as well as the majority of people in Cuba are against the government. I know this is not true, or at the very least, confirmation bias from his side, as the PPC and the dictatorship of the proletariat would collapse if that’s the case.

We had one long discussion recent(around 5 hours) of socialism but we always ended up at the same crossroads from as I would delve deeper into each discussion point. Since he doesn’t believe the elections are legitimate, nor does he think that the participatory democracy actually chooses the executive represents in a democratic way, he believes all the “benefits” of socialism are sham and not the “truth”(I imagine mostly because of western reporting). Hence, he thinks that if a non socialist party(liberal democracy for example) was in power, Cuba would be “okay”. Of course, we know that’s not true for AES that was brought down has had a worse quality of life thereafter…

I think part of the problem from my side is we discuss this all in person rather than me being able to collect stats/sources(how their standard of living is higher vs surrounding countries) but I’m just wondering what you would say is the “optimal” path of convincing him otherwise? I try to be respectful of all of his views rather than just attacking it down with “you’re wrong” as I’m just a 2nd generation Italian