In this video, Senator Bernie Sanders argues that the United States could learn a lot from Cuba. He points to the areas where Cuba has long been praised by its defenders, above all its health care and education systems, and suggests that American policy should be able to recognise what another country does well without endorsing everything about its government. It is the kind of remark that, from Sanders, has repeatedly drawn both admiration and fierce criticism.
The controversy around the comment comes from what it leaves unsaid, and from what his critics say it overlooks. Cuba under Fidel Castro was a one-party state that imprisoned dissidents, censored the press and drove many of its people into exile, and opponents of Sanders argue that praising its literacy or medical programmes whitewashes that record. His supporters reply that he has condemned authoritarianism, and that acknowledging a health care success is not the same as endorsing dictatorship.
For viewers, the clip is a window into one of the most persistent arguments of Sanders’s presidential campaigns. It raises a simple question that divides American politics: can a country learn from a rival system without excusing its failures, or does any praise for Cuba amount to an apology for Castro? The answer a viewer gives is likely to say a great deal about their view of socialism itself.