The Real Bernie Sanders Always Stands Up for What’s Wrong

By John Fund

Friday, July 24, 2026

 

There are very few politicians who are poorer judges of character than Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator ignored warnings and defended fellow socialist and sex pest Graham Platner through multiple scandals for almost a year. Platner withdrew from the Senate race only after a serious sexual assault allegation.

 

This week, video surfaced that Bernie’s blindness has a long history. His old communist ally, 80-year-old Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, announced there would no longer be any elections in his country — no doubt to ensure he would be succeeded in office by his 75-year-old vice president and wife and eventually his son.

 

Ortega has ruthlessly run Nicaragua for 19 years, having returned to power in 2007 after his Sandinista regime was ejected by voters in 1990. He has since jailed almost all of his political opponents. Over 300 people were killed by his security forces during protests in 2018, and the left-wing Human Rights Watch concluded, “High-level Nicaraguan officials bear responsibility for grave, pervasive abuses.”

 

At the time, Sanders did express concern over the “anti-democratic” drift of Nicaragua. But he has been almost completely silent since then. That’s because back in 1985, he traveled to Nicaragua at Ortega’s invitation to celebrate his regime. While there, he called Ortega “an impressive guy” and said that, while Fidel Castro wasn’t “perfect,” Americans shouldn’t forget that “just because Ronald Reagan dislikes these people, doesn’t mean that people in their own nations feel the same way.”

 

Amazingly, Sanders acknowledged that his views could lead to him being “attacked by every editorial writer in the free press for being a ‘dumb dupe.’” He then proceeded to prove that this was exactly what he was doing: he said that Cubans appreciated Castro’s rule because he “educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed the society.”

 

Now, 40 years later, Bernie has become the Pied Piper for the Democratic Socialists of America, whose adherents range from Zohran Mamdani to AOC and are pledging a “total transformation” of American society.

 

One thing is clear: Bernie is always certain of his moral superiority and always wrong as to what it leads to.