Under the premise of “confronting disinformation,” several Florida Democrats started a strong smear campaign against Miami radio stations. Their main targets were none other than conservative programs that were uncomfortable for the progressive-liberal politicians of the sunshine state. One of the visible faces of this campaign is former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who on February 22 accused Latino media—such as Radio Mambi and El American—of being a “danger to national security.”
Mucarsel-Powell, posting a screenshot of a tweet from El American, pointed out that “The threat to our national security is the disinformation that continues on stations like Radio Mambi and digital media like El American misleading Latinos in the US by helping Russia at this critical time.”
The article quoted by Mucarsel-Powell is published on our website in English and Spanish. Far from being a Russian disinformation report, as the former congresswoman falsely implies, it is a short news item, in which El American merely quotes the response of Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, on the Biden administration’s accusation that Russia put together a hit-list of Ukrainians.
In the same piece, El American quotes the New York Times, which published the Biden administration’s accusation against Russia. In other words, both versions of the event are presented without judgment or opinion.
The former congresswoman’s tweet did not go unnoticed, receiving several criticisms from conservative journalists and political strategists.
“The threat to democracy is your effort to silence all those who disagree with the left. Let me make it very clear to you: the reason you are not running for Congress is because your policies are unpopular, and you have totalitarian tendencies. You are fragile and dishonest,” Cuban-American strategist Giancarlo Sopo wrote on Twitter.
Jorge Bonilla, director of MRC Latino, an arm of the Media Research Center dedicated to analyzing the content of mainstream liberal media in the United States, published a video mocking Mucarsel-Powell’s repeated calls for “censorship” against conservative media.
Likewise, Jaime Florez, director of Hispanic communications for the RNC, said that the former congresswoman’s attack on Latino media is a way to gain notoriety after losing her seat in Congress to Republican Carlos A. Giménez.
“For going against the community where she lives, she lost her reelection to Congress. She left no trace, no one remembers her, and she wants to collect celebrity by attacking the media. Pitiful,” Florez said.
Mucarsel-Powell and her history with the Latino Media
Most likely, the former congresswoman didn’t even read El American’s article. However, the underlying problem is not that, but how Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, along with other Democratic politicians, declared war on the Latino media in order to censor them.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Mucarsel-Powell and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) sent a letter to the FBI asking to “investigate disinformation targeting Latinos.”
This effort by the congressmen came after liberal media outlets, such as Politico and NBC News, published articles accusing Miami radio stations of spreading disinformation among Hispanic communities. Since then, that rhetoric has remained present, both in the media and among Florida Democratic politicians.
A clear example is a lengthy Huffington Post article accusing Miami radio of dividing Latino households and manipulating Hispanic grandparents. That HuffPost article, by the way, was quoted and translated into Spanish by one of the propagandistic media of the Castro regime, Cuba Debate, who took advantage of the controversy to criticize the conservative radio stations where there are usually Cuban-American guests critical of Castroism.
That HuffPost piece was quoted on Twitter by Mucarsel-Powell to ask Congress to hold “Radio Mambi, Facebook, mainstream Spanish media & politicians like María Elvira Salazar, Marco Rubio, Carlos A. Giménez accountable for spreading dangerous misinformation. It is a danger to our communities and our democracy.”
Rep. Darren Soto (D-NJ), also cited the HuffPost tweet to call on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to address “the radicalization of Hispanic seniors by right-wing Miami radio. These lies are dangerous to democracy and clearly do not serve the “public interest”. Our seniors deserve better!”
Mucarsel-Powell’s efforts to smear Miami radio are not alone. For example, Fernand Amandi, president of the consulting firm Bendixen & Amandi International and an analyst at MSNBC, went so far as to accuse, without evidence, Miami radio of fueling a smear campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, arguing that many listeners were calling to the shows to criticize the Democrat.
Apparently, for Amandi, the inflation crisis, the border crisis or Harris’ progressive ideals are not enough reasons for Latino conservatives to be unhappy with the vice president of one of the most unpopular administrations in recent decades.
Mucarsel-Powell will now fight Spanish-language misinformation
The political failure of the former congresswoman, of Ecuadorian origin, was consummated after she herself announced on Twitter that she will not compete against Carlos A. Giménez for the congressional elections.
However, Mucarsel-Powell will not give up her war against the conservative Latino media, but will now redouble her efforts as a senior advisor and founder of the Tu Poder program, which belongs to Future Majority, a Democratic advocacy group.
Tu Poder is designed to combat “Spanish-language disinformation.” In other words, the former congresswoman will continue her crusade against Miami radio and conservative media outlets that are a thorn in the side of Democrats and liberal-progressive activists and media.
Regarding this new initiative of Future Majority together with Mucarsel-Powell, Daniel Garza, president of The LIBRE Initiative foundation, said in an interview with El American that the intentions behind this battle against “disinformation” is nothing more than a new way of “repressing” freedom of speech and press.
Beyond the attempts at censorship, it is also curious how former Congresswoman Powell accuses conservative media of spreading false information, while falsely accusing El American of being a Kremlin-friendly media and while she herself compared without any factual basis the Florida State Guard to the murderous collectives of Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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