The General US Politics Thread

For goodness’ sakes, it’s true. Cuba’s an authoritarian dictatorship and they have exceptionally high literacy rates and life expectancy given their income level.

It might not be politically expedient for him to say it, but there’s nothing wrong or untrue in what he’s saying.

I’d bet you could find dozens of positive comments on, say, China’s rate of economic growth from US politicians, even conservative ones, so this isn’t even out of the ordinary except that it’s Cuba, America’s bogeyman.

I'll be honest, I didn't even know Cuba still had an authoritarian government. Not to say that I thought it all vanished when Castro died, it's just...you don't really hear anything about Cuba these days. Usually when a country is authoritarian, people don't shut up about it.

To be fair I don't think Florida was going blue in this election anyway, but Sanders certainly isn't helping.

"Cuba’s an authoritarian dictatorship and they have exceptionally high literacy rates and life expectancy given their income level."

When this meme will die, Cuban data is hilariously faked on a professional level.

Raul did introduce some market reforms so that Cuba is closer to goulash communism, which makes me think he's less of a control freak than Fidel was, but it's still a surveillance state. There's little freedom of the press and citizens are not allowed to publicly criticize the government even for non-ideological issues such as poor infrastructure.

A lot of non-fascist authoritarian states can boast of improved literacy and other such milestones. Hell, the first emperor of Qin was famous for standardizing the writing system and streamlining communication, in part as a direct product of his draconian and hyper-authoritarian methods.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 24th 2020 at 10:34:19 AM

https://twitter.com/DavidWright_7/status/1232140197271408646

Bernie stop

STOOOOP

Ugh, just stick to Medicare For All, Sanders.

Edited by M84 on Feb 24th 2020 at 11:35:46 PM

He actually just made this much worse now.

Oh dear not this argument again. We've literally just gone through it elsewhere on this site and explained why it's such a terrible thing to say.

Incidentally this is the kind of thing that's why a lot of Chinese Americans can't stand Sanders even though more of us are in support of economically progressive policy than the stereotypes other progressives may hold about us may suggest. Even if we believe in all of his reforms he sure likes to engage in a lot of rhetoric that is culturally anathema to us and for very good reason.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 24th 2020 at 10:58:55 AM

I guess he's feeling confident after his recent wins and thus doesn't feel he needs to hold back on this shit anymore.

Yeah, how dare he be intellectually honest and consistent instead of lying about what he believes for the sake of political expediency!

Who would ever want a President who's upfront about what he believes?

I mean he's technically right, and were he speaking purely in terms of hypotheticals as a devil's advocate maybe this wouldn't be as much of an issue. But also keep in mind the CCP is responsible for inflicting mass poverty on people who were not immediately suffering in the first place. You don't get to throw people who were living perfectly fine lives above-ground into a pit with all the mole people, come around to building an elevator some 10-20 years later, then pat yourself on the back as some big hero for rescuing them.

As my own CCP-hating family have admitted, if you want to point out actual unambiguously good things the CCP have done, then there are much better examples like taking measures to combat gender inequality that their political alternatives simply were not willing to provide.

It wouldn't have been the first time he's attempted to handwave the CCP's atrocities. This is actually milder than usual.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 24th 2020 at 10:50:58 AM

Frankly if one doesn't agree that giving credit to authoritarian governments is a bad look then there's no point in arguing.

The problem is that whether one likes it or not, optics do matter. Sanders needs to distance himself as much as possible from these kinds of regimes, and these kinds of comments even if technically correct are unhelpful and very tone deaf at best.

You know, I keep reading you guys, and it feels as if we are in different planets. The usage of GOOD AND EVIL is... curious, for lack of better words.

You have an odd political scene.

Depends on the context.

With very few exceptions, I'm extremely comfortable putting Trump and the rest of the Republican party into the 'evil' category.

When you act like a caricature, you should be treated like one.

I'm glad he called it out as a dictatorial authoritarian regime. More Democrats should.

You know, I'm disgusted but kind of not surprised about the Sanders field organizer, as there really is an issue with him attracting some really cruel people who engage in the worst of edgelord behavior and sometimes doxing (the reporter who wrote the story is currently being doxed) using a righteous cause as an excuse.

But as far as Sanders' Castro comments go, I'm kind of wondering to what extent this is people "pretending to be upset" in order to knock Sanders.

Because I thought it was fairly uncontroversial (at least among non-Cuban Americans) that Castro had his good points and the official American line that treated him as the worst of the worst was always pretty laughable, especially given how many much, much worse dictators the U.S. has supported. I mean this is why Obama tried to open up relations with Castro, right? And we all supported that, right?

The problem is, whether he intends to or not it, and I genuinely do not think Sanders does even at his worst, he's literally fallen into the trap of "yes they're authoritarian and did/do a lot of horrible things buuuuuuut..." that is emblematic of actual tankies. Very few of them are stupid enough to go so far as pretend that such regimes are completely spotless these days, they just downplay it or give disproportionate praise to things that weren't really as wonderful as they try to skew it as.

I've been arguing the entire time that the Castro thing is definitely an optics issue and that it's not the worst thing ever but it's still not great. The CCP thing however is while similar also much more egregious.

In the full context I don't consider it praise, at best it's an extremely conditional and faint praise. But the fact that he did go this far is still extremely tactless and misplaced useful idiocy considering it's a frequent talking point of genuine authoritarian apologists.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 24th 2020 at 10:59:26 AM

And not just with Castro. He praised the CCP too.

When in doubt, if you're a politician, praising dictators never ever helps you.

x5 Yes, calling China Authoritarian is always a good thing... But praising said Authoritarians for any accomplishments they've done, when there are literal examples of Non-Authoritarian states accomplishing the exact same thing, is not a good thing. It's a very bad thing.

Not as bad as Trump praising actual Dictators and ignoring their flaws, as I've said before, but still very bad.

Edited by DingoWalley1 on Feb 24th 2020 at 10:58:18 AM

"And we all supported that, right?"

IDK but the later actions of the Cuban regime has soured a lot of people on that