The democratic socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, popular among liberalized Millennials, has expressed views that do not align with the majority of the American electorate.  Yet despite his poor performance in the primaries, he appears to want to stay in the race, looking for another losing repeat of 2016 but with Joe Biden maintaining the lead instead of Hillary Clinton.  He has been desperately begging for votes, pleading for high turnout rates, but it doesn't seem as though what he wants will ever come.

The 78-year-old heart attack–prone candidate will most likely not be physically capable of making another presidential run after this cycle, but his toxic views may continue to live among young college graduates with useless degrees.  Joe Biden's mind may be lost, but Sanders's intellectually bankrupt proposed policies have infected unsound minds.

Sanders holds the opinion that the right to vote should extend even to those in prison.  Specifically, when asked whether he believes that the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote from prison, he answered in the affirmative.  "Once you start chipping away at that...that's what our Republican governors all over this country are doing.  They come up with all kinds of excuses why people of color, young people, poor people can't vote."  The reason why "Republican governors" don't want people like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the Boston bomber) to vote is because he is a threat to society.  By committing murder, he can no longer freely participate in American society, hence why he is in prison on death row.

Sanders has applauded health care under Fidel Castro.  He didn't mention how that wouldn't be of much use if you were deemed an enemy of the communist regime and placed in front of a firing squad.  But more to the point, Cuba already had one of the lowest infant mortality rates and highest life expectancies in Latin America before Castro's reign.  Even though there was a significant increase in the number of hospitals in Castro's Cuba, the quality of care was lacking; when Castro fell ill in 2006, it wasn't a Cuban doctor who treated him, but a Spanish surgeon who flew to Cuba.  Once the Soviet Union and the economic aid it supplied to Cuba ended, health care suffered.  Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote, "A 2004 series on Cuba's health-care system in Canada's National Post said pharmacies stock very little and antibiotics are available only on the black market."

Sanders also glorified Castro's literacy program.  However, in 1950, before Castro had risen to power, 80% of Cubans could read.  Castro's literacy program was just a communist indoctrination program, where students were taught to worship the dictator and ignore the importance of family.  Hopefully, Sanders doesn't bet on getting the Cuban vote in Florida.

Bernie doesn't actually hate capitalism as much as he says.  He has gained $1.75 million from book sales, a nice supplement to his $174,000 salary as a senator.  He has no problem taking pride in his financial success: "I wrote a best-selling book.  If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."  That doesn't sound like a statement a socialist would say.  He and his wife own three houses, showing that he actually enjoys the freedom of movement that a capitalist society provides.

Many of Sanders's unionized campaign staffers were working 60-hour weeks and making only $13 an hour.  This is ironic, given that Sanders has been campaigning on raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.  Once news sources picked up the story, Sanders quickly scrambled to up their wages.  "I believe it's more than $15 an hour," he said, confirming the wage increase.  Should someone who isn't even aware of how much his staffers are being compensated be elected to the highest office in the country?

It seems that for Sanders, socialism is a gimmick to gain popularity, yet he would not want to live in a socialist society himself.  Luckily, America adopting a socialist regime is not going to happen in the near future.  If Trump can successfully maneuver the U.S. out of the coronavirus pandemic, his re-election is all but assured.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.