Fox News should send a thank you note to Chris Matthews for his rant conflating Bernie Sanders with 1950s communism and never mind that that is clearly not what Sanders stands for.
February 8, 2020

During a post-debate discussion on MSNBC last night, Matthews admitted that his gripe against Sanders goes back to a 70-year-old world view. And even then, it might have been ridiculous. Bernie-led executions in Central Park? Come on!

MATTHEWS: I have my own views of the word socialist and I'll be glad to share them with you in private and they go back to the early 1950s. I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed and certain people would be there cheering, OK? So, I have a problem with people who took the other side. I don't know who Bernie supports over these years. I don’t know what he means by socialism. One week it's Denmark. We're going to be like Denmark. OK, that's harmless. That’s basically a capitalist country with a lot of good social welfare programs. Denmark is harmless.

Chris Hayes interrupted to say that Sanders’ statements and his agenda are “pretty clearly” more Denmark than Cuba.

But Matthews refused to buy it.

MATTHEWS: What does he think of Castro? That’s a great question. What did you think of Fidelismo? We all thought he was great when he first - I was cheering like mad for him when he first went in and then he became a communist and started shooting every one of his enemies.

Did Matthews forget that it’s Donald Trump, not Sanders, who buddies up to Vladimir Putin and other world dictators? Just yesterday, it was Trump who proved ready, willing and able to wreak revenge on his political foes.

While the real clear and present danger to democracy occupies the White House, Matthews sounds like a raving grandpa stuck in the last century. Worse than that, Matthews just gifted Trump and his propagandists a slew of “Here’s what a Democrat says about Sanders” soundbites we may hear forever.

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