OPINION:
Before the election, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico was thrust into national headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. While many have rightfully criticized the joke about Puerto Rico by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the Madison Square Garden rally, few have spoken about the critically important elections that took place in Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
Across the ballot, pro-American options won in a choice between socialism and capitalism, authoritarianism and democracy, in both a nonbinding vote on whether the island should become a state and a vote between a socialist candidate for governor and pro-America Republican Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon.
Ms. Gonzalez-Colon proved victorious in a crowded field with nearly 40% of the vote. Now, President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans can secure for decades the vital Puerto Rican voting bloc that swung their way in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania by making Puerto Rico a state.
The vast majority of Puerto Ricans are proud of their U.S. citizenship and the island’s long record of military service under the American flag, predated by Puerto Rican support during the Revolutionary War. In 2016, Congress awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, its oldest and highest civilian award, to the mostly Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed “the Borinqueneers.”
These are just a few examples of Puerto Rico’s valuable contributions to America, including over $70 billion per year in interstate commerce.
The majority of the island has voted for statehood four times since 2012, with election results showing statehood won the most recent vote with a 57% majority. This is a good thing both for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Why? The people leading Puerto Rico’s small but vocal pro-independence movement, both in Puerto Rico and in cities including New York and Chicago, are connected to the extreme socialist and communist left and are largely driven by deep-seated anti-American sentiment.
Before the election, Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both New York Democrats, came to the island to endorse pro-independence socialist candidates running in Puerto Rico’s elections for governor, resident commissioner and mayor of San Juan. These endorsements unmasked the lawmakers’ stance on the island’s political status, aligning them with socialists and authoritarian sympathizers and against the Constitution they swore to defend.
The political parties of the candidates that Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez endorsed are full of socialists, some with ties to dictators Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The gubernatorial candidate of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Juan Dalmau, who lost to Ms. Gonzalez-Colon, has publicly aligned himself with Mr. Maduro. He was also exposed as having been an adviser to Mr. Ortega.
Leaders of these parties and other leading pro-independence organizations who have sought to oppose statehood for Puerto Rico in the U.S. Congress also have connections to terrorists. The Puerto Rican Cultural Center of Chicago, which supports independence and has a close relationship with federal lawmakers from Illinois, including former Rep. Luis Gutierrez, was co-founded by Oscar Lopez Rivera and is run by his brother Jose Lopez.
Mr. Lopez Rivera was a leader in the Marxist pro-independence terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, which claimed responsibility for five deaths and over 130 bombings in the 1970s and ’80s and had ties to Cuban intelligence.
Lopez Rivera was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1981 and was released from prison in 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted his sentence. Meanwhile, in Congress, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and its minions peddle lies and misinformation to try to thwart the will of the majority of Puerto Rican voters who believe in American freedom and want a closer relationship with the U.S.
The heinous tactics used to deny the pro-American will of the majority of Puerto Ricans is also exemplified by the Puerto Rican Independence Party’s newest ploy, “The Alliance.” Together with a labor union-funded left-wing political party called the Citizens Victory Movement, which says it supports vague decolonization for Puerto Rico, they tried pointing to “woke” social issues with a slick social media presence to rile up a base of mostly young voters.
By rebranding themselves as “The Alliance,” socialist pro-independence leaders sought to deceive voters in Puerto Rico, hiding their ties to Latin American leftist regimes and swearing that the election of their candidates did not mean that they would push for the island’s independence once in office.
The election night results on the island prove that voters were not fooled. An overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans reject socialism and communism, and a clear majority desire the freedom and prosperity that only statehood can bring them as U.S. citizens.
Forget the passing joke of a comedian. Let’s put a spotlight on our victory against socialism in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where voters fought back. Statehood and Gov,-elect Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon won at the ballot box — now the incoming Congress and Trump administration can leave a lasting legacy of advancing free-market capitalism, limited government, the rule of law and economic liberty by fully embracing Puerto Rico.
• Jose Fuentes is a former attorney general of Puerto Rico.
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