"And for Barack Obama, still president of the United States, he was a “singular figure” whose “enormous impact” would be recorded and judged by history."
It's interesting to see someone leave judgment as an open question, while others take very definite and opposite views. A "singular figure"...yes. An "enormous impact"...yes. In a positive way? Never. Not unless taken as a learning lesson on the risks of accepting the propaganda as a fact versus all the evidence we could see of what he was.
I doubt he ever changed, as said about his very early life. Could he have fooled himself into thinking he had the people's good intentions at heart? Or did he lie because he knew how to use the people's fears, anger, and desperation to serve himself. His methods and his life are now a vivid guide of what to beware of. But because of personal perspective...the same fears, anger, and desperation I doubt many will heed the warning they can see in the same kind because of the hopes they want to impose on the same kind of propaganda they want to believe in, no matter how contradicting and obvious the signs they are being used the same way.
I doubt the same kind of figures we see today are fooling themselves. They know what they are. It's the people who put faith in those like Castro who make the mistakes, not the Castros themselves. The lesson is beware. Believe your eyes and ears. Don't build another Castro and what he wants you to believe into what you want him to be.
Good luck
