Bernie Sanders’s praise for communist Cuba just became an issue. But do people even care anymore?

Bernie Sanders's praise for communist Cuba just became an issue. But do
people even care anymore?

On Tuesday night in Miami, the Bernie Sanders who once boasted of his
status as a "radical" met up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the
formidable major-party presidential candidate.

After the debate's organizers aired a three-decades-old clip of Sanders
praising Fidel Castro, the communist Cuban dictator who came to power in
the 1950s, some really might have expected trouble. In response, Sanders
tried to remain true to his socialist principles in praising Cuba's
universal health care and education systems, but he made mention of
Cuba's authoritarian, undemocratic government.

During his time as mayor of Burlington, Vt., Sen. Bernie Sanders shared
his views on the U.S.'s failed intervention in Cuba and on the Castro
regime, saying "he educated their kids, gave them healthcare, totally
transformed their society." He made these remarks after visiting
Nicaragua in 1985. (CCTV Center for Media & Democracy)
"What that was about was saying that the United States was wrong to try
to invade Cuba, that the United States was wrong trying to support
people to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, that the United States
was wrong trying to overthrow in 1954 the democratically elected
government of Guatemala," Sanders said.

That certainly wasn't the easiest answer to give to a crowd in Miami. In
recent years, the area's large and influential Cuban dissident
population has been joined by people from South American countries
controlled by leftist governments with communist ties.

Not surprisingly, the audience at the debate did some booing as Sanders
tried to walk the line between supporting what he sees as the benefits
of a communist Cuba -- universal health care which eats up less than 10
percent of the nation's GDP, a 99.8 percent literacy rate and free
higher education -- and the reality of how the Castro regime has
maintained power. It is a dictatorship sustained by force, dissident
imprisonment and control of information and travel.

Sanders -- a man who joined the Young People's Socialist League in
college, honeymooned in the Soviet Union and spoke at a Sandinista
government anniversary celebration in the 1980s -- is probably quite a
bit more sophisticated than most Americans in the way that he came to
express his mixed review of Cuba. And while his views on Cuba and Latin
Americans countries might at one time have really marginalized him --
even in a Democratic primary -- when it comes to the here-and-now and
today's key issues, Sanders's views do not put him far afield of the
mainstream.

A majority of Americans support both ending the trade embargo with Cuba
and normalizing diplomatic relations with the country, according to the
Pew Research Center.

Washington Post-ABC News poll Dec. 17-21, 2014 among 1,011 adults
conducted on conventional and cellular phones.
And before you chalk this up to people just not really knowing what's
happening in Cuba, there are indicators that most Americans are under no
illusions about the country's government or how it is likely to clean up
its act in the near future.

Of course, none of this means that Sanders's radical past and continued
support of socialist governments would fail to be a big, big issue in a
general election. In fact, should Sanders become the Democratic nominee,
debate-watchers can, among other things, expect many, many more
questions about his political philosophy -- along with the formal steps
he took to express his opposition to the Reagan Administration's
decision to fund and arm a right-wing opposition group in communist
Sandinista-controlled Nicaragua while Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vt.

But for now, in a Democratic presidential primary in Florida, if Sanders
pays only a slight price for his past comments, that really says something.

Source: Bernie Sanders's praise for communist Cuba just became an issue.
But do people even care anymore? - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/10/bernie-sanderss-praise-for-communist-cuba-just-became-an-issue-but-do-people-even-care-anymore/