At some point you have to lose all credibility. Bernie Sanders, for me, crossed that line a long time ago. Now...no, yeah, I'm done listening especially with his deafening silence now.
Sanders is well travelled. He's been to the Soviet Union and Cuba. I don't fault him for that; but, he visited the countries and got the treatment that Walter Duranty got by the Soviets did in the 30s and Michael Moore got by the Cubans when he lied to us with the movie Sicko. He didn't get treated like Gareth Jones was when he exposed the Ukrainian genocide.
Namely, we've known that regimes like this are restrictive to outsiders and that political figures and propagandists get shown the high life.
While Sanders was being shown elite hospitals in the Soviet Union, he said that they were a little behind the USA technologically; but, praised the Soviets for giving everyone access. Of course, the Soviets didn't let him see the rat-infested hell holes that they called "hospitals" that the common people could go to.
He was willing to jump through hoops in order to insist that Castro's Cuba wasn't all bad. Well, I get that that was his experience; but, much braver and more honest people have been there too and showed anyone who would look how bad it is for a while.
"It's because of our sanctions!" he insists. Well, libertarians and free market people have been opposing the sanctions from the beginning while Sanders has opposed every free trade agreement possible and railed against open border policies. So, restricting international trade is good in Sanders' brain until it's inconvenient for him.
He should know the history of these Soviet dictatorships lying to people like him and shielding people like him from the reality of the life of the average person.
It's time for Sanders to see the writing on the wall. He was wrong. He was complacent. He effectively sold this ideology to millions of people in this country. He could at least say, "I'm sorry. I was wrong."