FOR TOO long, dreams of heroic purity have harmed ordinary Cubans, both on the island and in exile. The island's leaders are stubborn, lonely men, fearing that openness will cost them control of their failed revolutionary project.
At the same time, islanders may justly blame another group in thrall to dreams of unyielding defiance, namely, hardline Cuban-Americans. Cuba's current, extreme isolation may be the work of President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump's 'maximum pressure' sanctions build on an embargo that was decades in the making, as successive presidents and congressional leaders bowed to Cuban-American exiles.
But Mr Trump's approach lacks ideological certainties of the past. His immigration officials have deported Cubans in their thousands and want Cuba to accept many more.
Some Cubans are ready for more pragmatism, and it should be no surprise if some are ready to abandon ideological rigidities. Purity of disapproval did not finish the Castro regime, which has outlasted 12 American presidents.
