Bernie campaigned for the communist Socialist Workers Party twice in the 80s
A communist by any other name is still a communist
Bernie Sanders likes to call himself a democratic socialist, perhaps because it’s a bit more palatable than plain ol’ “socialist.” Doesn’t really matter what he calls himself, his track record indicates that at the very least, he’s sympathetic to full blown communism.
Most recently, the Washington Examiner reported that during both the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections, Sanders campaigned for the communist Socialist Workers Party.
Bernie Sanders campaigned for the Socialist Workers Party in the 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns and was investigated by the FBI for his ties to the Marxist group.
Sanders has always played down the extent of his involvement with the party, which included radicals who praised the Soviet Union and Cuban communists, and has denied ever being a member. Asked in 1988 about his role as an SWP elector in 1980, he said: “I was asked to put my name on the ballot and I did, that’s true.” In fact, his ties to the party are deep and enduring.
…But his personal files from his time as mayor of Burlington, from 1981 to 1989, archived at the University of Vermont, show that he supported and campaigned for the communist SWP and maintained a close relationship with its senior members. While Democrats campaigned for President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984, Sanders spent the Reagan era supporting fringe Marxists with no chance of reaching the White House.
In 1980, Sanders “proudly endorsed and supported” Andrew Pulley, the party’s presidential candidate, who once said that American soldiers should “take up their guns and shoot their officers.” Sanders was one of three electors for Pulley on the Vermont ballot, stating in a press release: “I fully support the SWP’s continued defense of the Cuban revolution.”
Four years later, he backed and campaigned for the SWP presidential nominee Mel Mason, a former Black Panther, saying it was important for there to be “fundamental alternatives to capitalist ideology.” During the campaign, Mason praised the Russian and Chinese revolutions and said: “The greatest example of a socialist government is Cuba, and Nicaragua is right behind, but it’s still developing.”
Sanders involvement with the SWP resulted in an FBI investigation. WaEx ctd:
“I would agree with the judge,” Sanders said at the time, referring to a civil case arising from the incident, “who is quite correct in pointing out that when FBI agents come into a secretary of state’s office attempting to ‘investigate’ the political background of a mayor of the largest city in the state, there’s no question but that this opens up the potential for exploitation by the media and could be a source of embarrassment.”
The SWP has a long history of radicalism, starting at its beginning in 1938 when it was founded by devotees of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary and communist thinker who was assassinated by the Soviet government over his criticisms of the regime. Yet Trotsky’s legacy lived on, not only in the Soviet Union and the developing nations, but in the United States, where it attracted trade unionists, academics, bohemians, and an ambitious Vermont mayor.
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Comments
“his track record indicates that at the very least, he’s sympathetic to full blown communism.”
“Sympathetic to full communism” is like “sympathetic to full fascism” or “sympathetic to rape and murder”.
The problem is that young people today are so ignorant of history, that they think communism is a good thing.
Bernie, may you rot in a gulag.
and take Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Mau-Mau Obama with you!
Bernie will be dead in 10 years, maybe fewer. The real hazard to liberty is the crowd that votes for him and cheers him on. Most of them lean Democrat, evidenced by the fact that to a man (OK, person) they complained at the convention but jumped on the Hillary bandwagon eventually. At least by election day.
I first opened this post as i watched the local evening network propaganda source and they had Bernie at a rally in Pasadena, a stop to the state Dem convention further north. (I’m not going so I don’t worry about the location.) There were all kinds of nominally normal looking people cheering, waiving “Bernie” signs and wearing “Bernie” shirts. These are the people who bother me.
They will be around long after Bernie is burning in Hell and they will be voting to push the commie ideology along with their votes. And many will have no idea that is what they are doing. Once they do they will have passed the event horizon (apologies to Stephen Hawking).
It’s about time someone dares to use the word “communist”. McCarthyism ended two generations ago. The word is not obsolete. Communists did not go away.
When exactly did we become cowards about naming our enemies? It’s not just with Islamic terrorists and empowered perverts.
BTW, I stopped calling myself a conservative a couple of years ago because it had lost all meaning to me. Here is a “must read”, especially people who blindly embrace that word with no understanding about what it is supposed to mean.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/31/michael-malice-echoes-andrew-breitbart-if-youre-battling-leftists-in-washington-it-is-already-too-late/
Best quote: “Conservatism is just progressivism driving the speed limit for them.
So it’s not our fear of calling our enemies what they are, too many of us even understand the labels we embrace for ourselves. We keep allowing ourselves to be “handled” rather than taking control. I don’t like labels.
Correction:
“So it’s not just our fear of calling our enemies what they are, it’s also that too many of us don’t even understand the labels we embrace for ourselves. We keep allowing ourselves to be “handled” rather than taking control. I don’t like labels.”
It’s too early. I’m preparing to run a half-marathon in a few hours.
You can take my 23 different kinds of deodorant from me when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Pasadena Phil:
Don’t be a quitter — run the full marathon.
The only other option was the 5k. And I ran it on a bad ankle so it was hard enough.
Bernie is just one leftist who did so. Remember that Ted Kennedy tried to get the Russians involved in the 1984 election against Reagan. That was a secret letter carried by a friend of his to the Kremlin. Unearthed when the USSR fell, but it sure didn’t hurt Teddy’s re-election, did it?
I think there is a word which describes this…..Hmm, what could it be……Oh yeah….COLLUSION.
It would help if people understood the terms they were using.
re: “Bernie campaigned for the communist Socialist Workers Party twice in the 80s”
So did Biden, except it was going by a different name then. The Democrat Party. Weasels then and weasels now, just a heavier layer of funk and stink. Hmmm…maybe Teddy Kennedy rose from the dead!
Bernie would have a better chance if he ran on the Soviet ticket