Like a lot of people on the left, though possibly more than most, Bernie Sanders has a Fidel Castro problem. The problem is that Senator Sanders likes him – or, at least, he wants to like him. Fidel said all the right things. And he supposedly did all the right things: educating the kids, providing health care to everyone, transforming society. (There was the lack of freedom, political prisoners, etc., but some people on the left sort of skip over that.)
The difficulty for this view is that, regardless of what may have happened before 1990, things have gone downhill since the Soviet Union collapsed and money from Moscow stopped coming in.1 But that apparently hasn’t stopped Senator Sanders from believing, as he said on “60 Minutes” last month:
“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?”2
It's tough for Senator Sanders because the lack of freedom, elections, etc., in Cuba keeps interfering with what he seems to want to believe about Fidel.
It’s unfortunate Senator Sanders apparently hasn’t had a chance to read Havana Real by Yoani Sánchez or “Generation Y”, her blog.3 On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t make a difference because when you want to believe, like Senator Sanders with respect to Cuba, facts don’t make a difference. I know the feeling. I feel that way about the Cubs. But that’s baseball. And nobody’s using the police to keep me from changing my mind.
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1 Venezuela filled the gap for a while, but they're having their own problems now.
2 Please understand that no criticism I make of Senator Sanders, or anybody else who drinks the “Castro Kool-Aid,” means I approve of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. I don’t. But just because President Trump likes dictators doesn’t mean I can’t complain about Senator Sanders liking dictators.
3 While Senator Saunders may not know about Ms. Sánchez, there is a quotation from Barack Obama on the back of her book.
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