Thread by @DefiyantlyFree

🧵🧵 How did a communist become Mayor of the second largest city in America.

Let’s do a deep dive into Karen Bass. She had destroyed Los Angeles because that’s what she was trained to do.

In the 1970s, Bass was deeply involved with a pro-Cuban group called the Venceremos Brigade, which sent young Americans to Cuba to train under Fidel Castro’s communist regime.

This wasn’t tourism. This was political indoctrination.

Founded in 1969, the Venceremos Brigade was created by U.S. leftists aligned with revolutionary Marxist ideals. The group’s mission was to show solidarity with Cuba’s communist revolution by organizing trips where American youth would work alongside Cubans, often in sugar cane fields, and participate in political indoctrination programs.

Bass made at least one trip to Cuba as part of the Venceremos Brigade, an experience she later described as having a “profound impact” on her. She was reportedly involved in local organizing for the Brigade’s Los Angeles chapter, which recruited others to participate.

This was during the Cold War, at a time when Cuba was openly hostile to the United States, allied with the Soviet Union, and exporting violent revolution throughout Latin America and Africa.

The Cuban regime that Bass praised:
•Executed political prisoners
•Censored the press
•Outlawed dissent
•Imprisoned gays, dissidents, and religious leaders

And yet, when Fidel Castro died in 2016, Bass issued a public statement calling him “comandante en jefe” and did not mention his human rights abuses at all.

According to declassified U.S. intelligence documents, both the FBI and CIA tracked the Venceremos Brigade for decades. Their concern?
The Brigade was not merely a peace-and-solidarity initiative — it was heavily influenced, co-organized, and at times directly run by Cuba’s intelligence service, the DGI (Dirección General de Inteligencia).

A 1976 Senate report and subsequent CIA memos noted that Cuban intelligence used these trips to identify and cultivate ideologically aligned Americans, some of whom were later used as influence agents or propaganda amplifiers in U.S. political and academic spaces.

The U.S. government flagged the Brigade as a “target of concern” — not just for pro-communist ideology, but because it provided face-to-face access to a hostile foreign intelligence apparatus.

Karen Bass was among the recruits. She wasn’t just a tourist. She was recruited into a group specifically designed to expose young Americans to Marxist ideology and Cuban revolutionary politics. She later referred to her time in Cuba as “transformative” and never denounced the Brigade’s communist underpinnings or intelligence ties.

Years later, in a 2016 statement mourning Fidel Castro, Bass called him “Commandante en Jefe” a phrase used only by Castro loyalists and praised his leadership without any mention of the regime’s brutality, executions, or suppression of dissent.

The FBI and CIA monitored the Venceremos Brigade for decades. Why? Because U.S. intelligence suspected it was co-run by Cuban spies to radicalize young Americans.

According to multiple declassified FBI memos and CIA briefings, the Venceremos Brigade served three purposes:
1.Recruitment and radicalization of young Americans sympathetic to Marxism.
2.Ideological training: Attendees were immersed in pro-Castro propaganda and taught to see the U.S. as an imperialist threat.
3.Intelligence grooming: Select participants were believed to be cultivated for future influence operations or political activism aligned with Cuban interests.

The FBI’s counterintelligence division tracked the names of participants, monitored organizing cells in major U.S. cities, and warned of potential subversive penetration into American institutions.

Karen Bass, then a college student in Los Angeles, joined the Venceremos Brigade and traveled to Cuba.

Unlike many who later distanced themselves from their radical pasts, Bass never disavowed her involvement. In fact, she referred to her time in Cuba as a “transformative experience” and said she admired the “social justice” model of the Cuban revolution.

But she didn’t stop there.

In 2016, when Fidel Castro died, Bass issued a public statement mourning him as “Comandante en Jefe”—a term used affectionately by Castro loyalists and Cuban state propaganda outlets. She offered zero acknowledgment of the regime’s:
•Mass imprisonments
•Execution of political dissidents
•Total press censorship
•Human rights abuses spanning five decades

This was not youthful ignorance. This was a continued ideological alignment.

What Happened After Bass Took Office?

Rather than turning L.A. around, Bass presided over a deepening of every crisis she claimed she would fix from public safety to homelessness to corruption.

Crime Surged
•Retail theft skyrocketed, with videos of mass smash-and-grabs going viral.
•Gangs and organized crews ransacked businesses in daylight, facing little to no consequence.
•Assaults and robberies spiked, particularly in formerly “safe” neighborhoods like Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, and Venice.
•Police morale dropped to record lows. LAPD lost officers faster than it could recruit new ones, due to defunding efforts and lack of support from city leadership.

Karen Bass responded not by cracking down — but by talking about “root causes” and social programs.

Homelessness Exploded

Bass launched a program called “Inside Safe”, which promised to move the unhoused off sidewalks and into permanent housing.

Here’s what actually happened:
•Tent cities reappeared days after “clearing” operations.
•Homeless hotel contracts cost $700–$1,200 per room, per night, draining city resources.
•Drug use, mental illness, and cartel-linked trafficking in homeless camps went unaddressed.
•As of 2024, homelessness was up, not down, despite massive spending.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the total number of homeless residents surpassed 75,000, the highest in the city’s history.

Who profited?

While the city spiraled, corruption scandals mounted:

•Bass’s ally Councilmember Kevin de León, was caught on tape making racist comments yet refused to resign. Bass called it “unfortunate” but refused to lead.
•A revolving door of nonprofit contractors and city consultants earned millions through homelessness programs, while conditions worsened.
•Bass herself faced questions about a scholarship she received from USC’s social work school, during a federal bribery probe involving the school and Rep. Mark Ridley-Thomas. Though not charged, her name appeared in federal court filings and exposed cozy ties between L.A. politicians and favored institutions.

Los Angeles became a national cautionary tale:
•Taxpayer dollars burned on failed programs
•Middle-class families fled to safer, saner cities
•Small businesses closed or moved to Texas, Arizona, or Florida
•Drug deaths in public bathrooms and subways rose
•The entertainment industry once the crown jewel of L.A. began quietly relocating studios and productions