“That a poor right-winger votes for Trump or Milei is a result of cognitive warfare”: Omar González
This article by Angel Vargas originally appeared in the May 4, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.
The “poor right-wing” citizen who voted for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in the United States, or Milei in Argentina is not an accident or a class mistake, argues Cuban intellectual Omar González Jiménez: “It is the result of the ideological war, of everything that the system creates to segregate the individual and impoverish him.”
The former Deputy Minister of Culture of the island nation will give a seminar at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), from May 5 to 12, entitled ¿Si todo (nada) vale, para qué sirve la cultura? (If everything (nothing) is worthwhile, what is the purpose of culture?), organized by the Postgraduate Program in Latin American Studies.
It will be a critical immersion into “the battles of our present”: from cognitive warfare to internal colonialism, passing through cultural standardization, the rise of the far right and the role of organic intellectuals, explains the writer, journalist and teacher.
“The first step is to start with what is meant by the notion of culture,” he says, recalling that a study by two American anthropologists in the mid-20th century revealed that there were more than 150 valid and socially established concepts of what culture is. “This shows that there are as many visions, notions, and approaches as in few other subjects.”
Contrary to the nineteenth-century view that confined culture to circles of experts or enlightened elites, he argues that today it has diversified and spread to such an extent that even lack of culture is now part of it.
For Omar González – who on May 8, at 11 a.m., will give a keynote address at the Ibero-American University on “being Cuban in difficult times” – culture is not an ornament or a luxury: it is a tool for defending identity.
In an interview, he recalls José Martí, who shortly before his death wrote in a letter that “the great war being waged against us is a war of thought,” and that it had to be won with the same: intellectual activity, “that is, the very value of culture.” This observation by the poet, he explains, stemmed from the hegemonic ambitions of the United States to annex Cuba, as is happening today.
That war, he adds, is now called cultural, cognitive, or hybrid, but its essence remains the same. “Culture serves to uphold the law, to define, consolidate, and establish identity. It serves to defend us, to reaffirm ourselves, to know who we are, where we come from.”
Reflecting on the relationship between culture, economy and power, the Cuban intellectual underlines the colossal weight of the cultural industries, with Hollywood as a paradigm not only geographically, but aesthetically.
“Hollywood is no longer a physical space: it is an aesthetic model, a way of making films,” he asserts, and denounces how this model standardizes, simplifies, and turns history into a product.
One of the most pointed passages in the interview is the reflection on the “right-wing poor.” Omar González alludes to studies by a Brazilian anthropologist to explain the Bolsonaro phenomenon, but extends it to Trump and Milei.
“Bolsonaro’s decisive vote wasn’t from the bourgeoisie: it was from the right-wing poor,” he asserts. “That right-wing poor, or the down-on-their-luck middle-class citizen, especially the white citizen, is what makes up the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement in the United States.”
These social and historical subjects, he elaborates, are “the result of ideological warfare, spiritual balkanization, and everything the system creates to segregate the individual, to impoverish him and turn him into a tribal zombie.”
According to him, there are political categories that can no longer be used because the siege and the belittling have erased them, especially left-wing categories, or have distorted them and the right has appropriated them.
“Many things that were once the banners of the left are now being brandished by abominable beings, like Trump, or clowns, like Milei. They are using our categories. There is an etymological battle. And the left lacks strength, it hasn’t quite managed to organize itself to defend against these attacks.”
Based on the notion that culture reaches where politics cannot, the former director of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry highlights the role of diplomatic intellectuals, whether on official or informal missions, taking as examples the Mexicans Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz and Alfonso Reyes, and from Cuba, Alejo Carpentier.
La Jornada, a Fundamental Media Outlet
The reference to Mexico leads him to introduce the concept of “internal colonialism,” developed by sociologist Pablo González Casanova: “Colonialism did not end with independence. It continues to subjugate Indigenous minorities and entire cultures.”
And also to recognize the role of La Jornada: “It is a fundamental alternative media outlet, the most important of what would truly be called the left in the world today.”
Among other topics, the seminar will include a historical overview of the mechanisms of cultural exclusion, taking as a reference the Hays Code, a strict set of moral self-censorship regulations applied to Hollywood film production between 1934 and 1968.
Omar González recalls that hundreds of filmmakers were persecuted to send the message that communist ideas would not be tolerated. He noted that one of the figures who appeared before the court was Bertolt Brecht.
“That process is very instructive in showing how far the system of exclusion reaches.” That story is being played out today in executive orders against science and culture. In the United States, he points out, there are more than 8,000 titles censored in public schools.
Other topics to be addressed include social media and the “original sin” of ignorance. According to Omar González, these networks were not created for cultural purposes, but rather under the logic of the market. The result is “the planetary zombie”: an individual without a fixed identity, manipulated by algorithms.
More information about the seminar and registration can be found by emailing: latinoamericanos@posgrados.unam.mx
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