Bernie Sanders has a 100 percent rating from the American Civil Liberties Union. His support for individual political rights is so unwavering he has called for the enfranchisement of all of America’s incarcerated citizens. His belief in freedom of expression is so unyielding he has scolded progressive college students for shutting down the speeches of far-right speakers. “To me, it’s a sign of intellectual weakness,” the Vermont senator said in 2017. “If you can’t ask Ann Coulter, in a polite way, questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo or shut her down or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?”
Bernie Sanders: We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad, you know? 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?
Anderson Cooper: A lot of p— dissidents imprisoned in, in Cuba.
Bernie Sanders: That’s right. And we condemn that. Unlike Donald Trump. Let’s be clear, you want to — I do not think that Kim Jong-un is a good friend. I don’t trade love letters with a murdering dictator. Vladimir Putin, not a great friend of mine.
One can reasonably critique Sanders’s remarks in political terms. Given the Cuban-American vote in Florida — and/or the devout anti-communist boomer bloc across the nation — the senator might have been wise to put more emphasis on his condemnation of the Cuban government’s authoritarianism and less on the unfairness of how the regime’s legitimate achievements have been elided.
But as a substantive matter, the notion that Sanders’s acknowledgement of the Castro regime’s accomplishments betrays his secret sympathy for authoritarian communism is absurd. It is a fact that Cuba has one of the highest-performing education systems in Latin America, while its medical system has enabled its people to enjoy life expectancy and infant mortality rates similar to those of U.S. residents despite the island’s relative poverty. Meanwhile, with regard to Sanders’s remarks from the 1980s, the claim that Castro’s early social programs mitigated popular opposition to his government is endorsed by many historians of the region.
Congratulations to our presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden!
If I were to vote in a presidential
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