« How worried are progressive Jewish voters about Bernie’s anti-Semitism? | Democrats escalate the lies they’re throwing at Trump about coronavirus »
March 1, 2020

Miami’s Cuban population has an impromptu pro-Trump rally

By Andrea Widburg

When it comes to Fidel Castro, Bernie just can’t quit him. The problem for Bernie is that Florida, with its 248 delegates for the Democrat primary and its 29 Electoral College votes, may be finding it increasingly easy to quit Bernie.

Bernie has a man-crush on Fidel Castro. Given the opportunity, he keeps lavishing love on a dictator who drove thousands of his country people to exile, slaughtered thousands more, imprisoned tens of thousands of his people, and drove his country into decades of poverty.

In 2016, Bernie defended Castro when Hillary attacked him for a 1985 video in which he talks about how wonderful it was that Castro gave kids literacy and healthcare. Bernie had a comeback ready:

"Cuba is, of course, an authoritarian, undemocratic country and I hope very much, as soon as possible, it becomes a democratic country," Sanders said.

"But on the other hand it would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in healthcare, they are sending doctors all over the world.

"They have made some progress in education."

That set the template. Bernie has consistently repeated this shtick in the last couple of weeks. He did so in an interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. Later, during a CNN town hall, Bernie praised Castro again. And then he kept on going, over and over, in every forum, doggedly praising Castro.

For most people, there are some political systems or dictators so bad that you don’t praise anything they did. No one says, “Yeah, Hitler murdered 6 million Jews and started a war that left around $40 million dead, but you have to give him credit for building a very good army.” Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot . . . all of them are too toxic to touch with praise, especially praise for things that flowed directly from their tyrannical rule.

Bernie’s stubbornness on this issue has cost him. While he once had a lead in Florida, home to the majority of refugees from Cuba, as well as their descendants, now Biden is in the lead. And here’s something that may be related: Cubans are coming out strongly in support of Trump, a man who not only does not praise Castro but who reinstated the embargo that Obama, the last Democrat president, revoked.

Enthusiastic Miami Cubans, unhappy with the Democrats' love for and overtures to Cuba, had an impromptu parade on Saturday:

It's not only Cuban Americans who should worry the Democrats if Bernie becomes their candidate for president. Florida has a sizable Jewish population: around 630,000 people and they vote.

Most of these Jews are old-fashioned Kennedy-style Democrats and some are still FDR Democrats. Even though the Democrat party associated with those presidents is long gone, Florida's Jews support the Democrat party out of a bone-deep revulsion to Republicans, whom they still associate with the old white-shoe anti-Semitism of the first half of the 20th century. (White-shoe refers to the time when Jews couldn’t get into the Ivy Leagues or work for established banks, law firms, etc.)

No matter their sense of revulsion against Republicans and Trump, though, it’s difficult to imagine Florida’s Jews willingly voting for Bernie Sanders, the man who pals around with some of the worst anti-Semites in America. Jews have been paying attention to Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and they are not happy that Bernie Sanders has chosen these women as his campaign proxies. Jews also understand that there is no anti-Semite worse than a self-loathing Jew.

Even if Bernie is able to win the Democrat primary without Florida, it’s questionable whether he can win the presidency without Florida’s Cuban and Jewish communities giving him their support.

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com