Who you hang out with matters. Or as the Scriptures warn, “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.”

This principle is at play when it comes to Cuba’s efforts to corrupt the American political system, which is founded upon a Judeo-Christian ethic, and replace it with an inherently atheistic, morally relative Marxist construct.

Back in 1960, newly ascendent communist dictator Fidel Castro founded the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) to spread Marxist ideology. As a recent State Department report reads, ICAP “ostensibly exists to promote goodwill toward Cuba through a global infrastructure of ‘friendship’ and ‘solidarity’ organizations and deep, longstanding ties to U.S. universities, student groups and activist movements.”

In short, ICAP is an organization that exists to subvert Western free market democratic systems. Indeed, it is currently being run by a former Cuban spy who spent 15 years in a U.S. prison for spying. Furthermore, some 90% of ICAP’s staff has ties to Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate.

As the State Department observes, “The Cuban regime leverages ICAP’s ‘solidarity’ networks to drive policy, shape activist movements, and maintain a stable of advocates and agents in the United States.”

Thus it comes as little surprise that the Democratic Socialists of America have been sending members to Cuba to learn from these communists how to promote more communism. Of course, the DSA frames it as an opportunity “to counter U.S. propaganda about Cuba” after they “see the country firsthand.” Furthermore, “These delegations are crucial in dispelling misinformation, strengthening our movement, and equipping participants with the knowledge to advocate for change back home.”

That’s rich, given the abject failure that is Cuba’s communist economic system. Naturally, the DSA dispels this and blames it entirely on the U.S. for its economic embargo against the Castro regime.

For the radical leftist DSA, capitalism is the problem, and America needs to be fundamentally transformed, revolutionized away from this fairest and most successful economic system ever developed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Cuba’s outreach to America radical leftists is nothing new; it’s an old strategy embraced by Castro to wage a “much wider and bigger war” against the U.S. He explained, “Cuba matters to us because it’s 90 miles from our shores, and it has a direct impact on our national security — be it the things they’ve been involved in in the past, the countries they’ve aligned with in the past and currently.”

The DSA is one faction of the Castro regime’s proxy war against America. It also supports Black Lives Matter and Code Pink.

Cuba knows it can’t defeat the U.S. militarily; thus, it has engaged in this decades-long effort to subvert America from within by developing communists to infiltrate the U.S. government. The DSA appears to be the most successful of these efforts, as a number of DSA candidates have won elections across the country, including the biggest win, Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral victory.

Unsurprisingly, members of the Leftmedia complex have responded to Rubio’s report by smearing him as Joseph McCarthy, igniting another Red Scare. However, this Red Scare is fully deserved, as this is exactly what radical leftists are pushing: a Marxist revolution.

The DSA has seen significant success in infiltrating and taking over the Democrat Party. What’s to stop radical DSA activists from continuing to do the same across the entirety of the American government?

Rubio is right. The DSA is a legitimate threat to Americans and our liberty. Ignoring it, or assuming that no one is falling for Marxist lies, will not stop the spread. These radicals must be confronted and called out for the toxic policies they advocate.

As Ronald Reagan so pointedly warned, “Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”