HIS father Mario, a struggling bartender; Oriales, a hotel maid and devoted mother; Pedro, his garrulous, cigar-smoking grandfather, known to the grandchildren as Papá; an elder brother, also Mario, who became a Green Beret: the supporting cast in Marco Rubio’s back-story is a technicolour pageant of striving Cuban immigrants turned patriotic Americans. If Mr Rubio somehow manages to seize the Republican nomination from Donald Trump—a feat he seems best-placed to achieve—Americans will hear his story often. But what, exactly, is its moral?
In Mr Rubio’s telling, his biography is a fable of America, which “changed the history of my family”. In no other country could someone who, as a child, was taken by his father to ogle the dreamlike mansions of the rich, rise to the Senate, and possibly beyond. It follows that America must not forsake its rugged individualism: “We don’t want to become like the rest of the world,” Mr Rubio insists, delighting his many fellow exceptionalists.
It is also, of course, a story...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1RpBa6B
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