The campaign to re-elect President Trump is going to sleep a little easier tonight.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has cemented his position as the 2020 Democratic primary front-runner, is still defending Fidel Castro, claiming as recently as this weekend that the late communist tyrant was not all that bad. After all, the Vermont senator explained during a Sunday appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the murderous Castro regime had literacy programs.
And just like that, Sanders has made winning Florida and its 29 electoral votes a whole lot more difficult for the Democratic Party. Anyone who knows anything about Florida politics knows you never, ever defend the regime responsible for why there are so many Cubans in the Sunshine State in the first place. Yet, here is Bernie Sanders, the man with the clearest path to the Democratic nomination, doing exactly that.
Trump reveals first look at presidential library in Miami
Teacher of the Year finalist gets 14 years for sexual relationship with student she kept contacting
Top Ten King-Like Things Barack Obama Did That Democrats Had No Problem With
Fugitive illegal alien convict on the run after attempting to strike ICE officer with vehicle: DHS
Charlie Kirk Memorial Bill Vetoed by Swing-State Dem Governor Who Said It Didn’t ‘Bring People Together’
DHS slams California ‘sanctuary’ county after mom allegedly murdered by 2 Honduran nationals
Jayapal floats reparations for illegal immigrants impacted by Trump crackdown, demands prosecutions
Opinion: Is It Just Me, or Is the World Finally Starting to Feel Normal Again?
Pam Bondi Announces the DOJ Is Suing Tim Walz’s Minnesota
Woman dies after falling from 60-foot cliff along popular Smoky Mountains trail
Rep Rashida Tlaib moves to block US operations in Lebanon but ignores Hezbollah
Trump’s TSA Executive Order Appears to Have Had Immediate Impact at Busiest Airports
Trump Reveals New White House Ballroom Will Have a ‘Massive,’ Hidden Military Purpose
Worse Than Booze? Tiger Woods’ Former Employee Thinks Ex-Boss Declined Urine Test Over Something Much Stronger Than Alcohol
Pentagon cites ‘meritocracy’ as reported officer promotion removals draw Democratic criticism
The most damaging moment from Sanders’s appearance on 60 Minutes comes when his interviewer, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, brings up the senator’s past praise for Castro. CBS segues into this portion of the interview by playing archival footage of the senator parroting Cuban propaganda. Sanders can be seen and heard in these old tapes arguing that Castro was welcomed and defended by the Cuban people because “he educated their kids, gave them health care, totally transformed the society, you know.”
Fast-forward to the present, and Sanders is still saying the same things.
“We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba,” the senator told Cooper, “but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know?”
Trump reveals first look at presidential library in Miami
Teacher of the Year finalist gets 14 years for sexual relationship with student she kept contacting
Top Ten King-Like Things Barack Obama Did That Democrats Had No Problem With
Fugitive illegal alien convict on the run after attempting to strike ICE officer with vehicle: DHS
Charlie Kirk Memorial Bill Vetoed by Swing-State Dem Governor Who Said It Didn’t ‘Bring People Together’
DHS slams California ‘sanctuary’ county after mom allegedly murdered by 2 Honduran nationals
Jayapal floats reparations for illegal immigrants impacted by Trump crackdown, demands prosecutions
Opinion: Is It Just Me, or Is the World Finally Starting to Feel Normal Again?
Pam Bondi Announces the DOJ Is Suing Tim Walz’s Minnesota
Woman dies after falling from 60-foot cliff along popular Smoky Mountains trail
Rep Rashida Tlaib moves to block US operations in Lebanon but ignores Hezbollah
Trump’s TSA Executive Order Appears to Have Had Immediate Impact at Busiest Airports
Trump Reveals New White House Ballroom Will Have a ‘Massive,’ Hidden Military Purpose
Worse Than Booze? Tiger Woods’ Former Employee Thinks Ex-Boss Declined Urine Test Over Something Much Stronger Than Alcohol
Pentagon cites ‘meritocracy’ as reported officer promotion removals draw Democratic criticism
Sanders added, “When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”
There are a lot of “dissidents imprisoned in Cuba,” Cooper noted.
A couple of things.
First, “came into office” is just a remarkable euphemism. Castro did not “come into office” so much as he slaughtered his way to power, which he then held onto with a murderous, tyrannical grip until his death in 2016. Castro was an indisputably evil man, whose long, oppressive reign was bloody and terrible from the very start, which makes Sanders either ignorant or himself evil for defending it.
Second, it is hard to imagine that a U.S. senator who is this close to winning his party’s nomination, who has also been in the U.S. Congress for 30 years, would be so stupid as to defend a dictator who is so universally and uniquely despised in the crucial swing state of Florida. Let me remind you that in July 2019, back when Bill de Blasio was still running in the 2020 Democratic primary, the New York City Mayor caught all hell from members of his own party after he chanted a phrase popularized by Castro’s right-hand man, Che Guevara, at a labor protest in Miami.
Trump reveals first look at presidential library in Miami
Teacher of the Year finalist gets 14 years for sexual relationship with student she kept contacting
Top Ten King-Like Things Barack Obama Did That Democrats Had No Problem With
Fugitive illegal alien convict on the run after attempting to strike ICE officer with vehicle: DHS
Charlie Kirk Memorial Bill Vetoed by Swing-State Dem Governor Who Said It Didn’t ‘Bring People Together’
DHS slams California ‘sanctuary’ county after mom allegedly murdered by 2 Honduran nationals
Jayapal floats reparations for illegal immigrants impacted by Trump crackdown, demands prosecutions
Opinion: Is It Just Me, or Is the World Finally Starting to Feel Normal Again?
Pam Bondi Announces the DOJ Is Suing Tim Walz’s Minnesota
Woman dies after falling from 60-foot cliff along popular Smoky Mountains trail
Rep Rashida Tlaib moves to block US operations in Lebanon but ignores Hezbollah
Trump’s TSA Executive Order Appears to Have Had Immediate Impact at Busiest Airports
Trump Reveals New White House Ballroom Will Have a ‘Massive,’ Hidden Military Purpose
Worse Than Booze? Tiger Woods’ Former Employee Thinks Ex-Boss Declined Urine Test Over Something Much Stronger Than Alcohol
Pentagon cites ‘meritocracy’ as reported officer promotion removals draw Democratic criticism
“Quoting a murderer responsible for death & oppression in communist Cuba and throughout Latin America is not acceptable. Please apologize,” said Democratic state Sen. Jose Javier Rodríguez.
Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo, added elsewhere, “This is the problem that we run into all the time … The Left has people that are just clueless as hell.”
Local residents were also none-too-pleased, including Bay of Pigs veteran Félix Rodríguez, who told the Miami Herald: “Does [de Blasio] really know who Che Guevara was? I don’t think so. If he does, he’s a f—ing asshole.”
Remember: These reactions were over de Blasio merely quoting a catchphrase commonly attributed to Castro’s chief henchman. Imagine how these and other Florida residents are going to react when they learn that the likely 2020 Democratic nominee said it is “unfair to simply say everything is bad” about the Castro regime because it had literacy programs.
If Sanders manages to clinch the nomination, and he holds fast to defending the men whose political purges and persecutions drove more than one million Cubans to flee by any means necessary to the United States, Democrats may need to have a serious conversation about whether it is even worth the money and effort to compete in Florida.
