Is Bernie Sanders a Communist?

This video of Bernie Sanders in 1985, celebrating the 7th anniversary of the Communist takeover of Nicaragua, is a classic. I knew people who talked like this, but that was in the 1960s and early 1970s. By 1985, almost everyone knew better. But not Bernie Sanders.


It isn’t shocking that some dimwitted guy was a Communist stooge in 1985. It is shocking that that same stooge is now running for president of the United States.

The questions that journalists never seem to ask lifelong leftists who run for office are, have you changed your views? And if so, when and why?

As far as I know, Sanders has never recanted the childish anti-Americanism and pro-Communism that he expressed in 1985. On the contrary, his public persona has been depressingly consistent for decades. Moreover, his enthusiasm for the Sandinistas couldn’t be more timely. The Sandinistas ruined Nicaragua; in more recent years, the Chavistas have ruined Venezuela.

The socialist Chavez/Maduro regime, which espouses the same creed as Bernie Sanders, has been a disaster: what once was one of the richest nations in the world has been reduced to abject poverty. Millions have fled Venezuela; those who remain have only sporadic electricity and water, and hunt rats as food; health care has ceased to exist; inflation is running at a level that is unmeasurable, but estimated at 1 million percent per year, or more; and crime is so rampant that Venezuela is one of the most dangerous places in the world. To be fair, a considerable portion of that crime is committed by Maduro’s death squads, who attack anti-socialist protesters, often with fatal results.

So where does Sanders stand on the Chavez/Maduro regime? He supports it. To my knowledge, he has not leveled any criticism, and he denounces the Trump administration’s efforts to bring about a constitutional change in government as a “coup” in support of a “right wing extremist,” i.e., the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly–an absurd claim.

As far as the record shows, Bernie Sanders is the same Communist dictator-supporting thug today that he was in 1985. He nearly won the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016, and is a serious candidate for 2020. It is telling that his main liability as a Democratic candidate is not that he is a lifelong supporter of socialist tyranny, but rather that he is a white man.

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