Bernie's Cuba Statement

A small kerfuffle as Bernie Sanders talks about Cuba. Here is the bit:

Sen. Bernie Sanders has sparked controversy with a 60 Minutes interview in which he appeared to partly defend certain aspects of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s rule late Sunday. The Democratic frontrunner made the comments when asked by host Anderson Cooper to clarify remarks he’d made about Castro in the 1980s, when he argued that Cubans didn’t rise up against the dictator because he’d “transformed the society.” “We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know?” Sanders told Cooper. “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?” 

He went on to clarify that the imprisonment of dissidents under Castro should still be condemned. “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,” he said.

Go read Patrick Iber's Twitter thread arguing this is no big deal. I agree mostly, but not totally. Where I would differ is that this is not about "accuracy" per se. Did Fidel Castro create popular literacy programs? Yes. Were there lots of other reasons people didn't rise up, some of them because of repression? Yes. Is it possible to give an accurate answer that does not praise a dictatorship? Yes. Is that smarter in a presidential election? Yes.

That's where you need to remember your audience and avoid political tone-deafness. The audience, of course, is mostly Florida. I do not know empirically how many Floridians who are in the fence and think about foreign policy as a reason to choose, but praising Fidel Castro is generally not a good political move. Crafting an effective message now is a good idea.

It's early and Bernie isn't the nominee, so this is a tempest in a teapot. But looking forward it's good to have a plan for how to respond to questions about Cuba and Venezuela. That is true for any candidate, but especially for Bernie because he's made so many statements in the past and they will be brought up endlessly.