The New York Post warned its readers on Sunday not to be fooled by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, whom it called a “diehard communist” in an article by Paul Sperry.
Sanders, the Post said, was “a communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War,” and could not be named to a cabinet position because he “would never pass an FBI background check.” His “radical pro-communist past” is being white-washed by the liberal media, who call his leanings “progressive” or “pragmatic,” the article claimed.
The former U.S. senator from Vermont, who has frequently described himself as a “Democratic socialist” and is not seen as a friend of big business, has been gaining ground against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and that may be what triggered the Post article.
Among the “subversive red flags popping up” from Sanders’ past, according to the Post, which also refers to 74-year-old Sanders as “a codger,” are:
- Sanders’ joined the Young People’s Socialist League while attending the University of Chicago
- His work as an organizer for the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which the paper claimed was a communist front
- A documentary film he produced on the life of Eugene Debs, hailed by the Bolsheviks as “America’s greatest Marxist”
- Sanders’ honeymooning with his second wife in the USSR and several “goodwill” trips to Cuba and Nicaragua, where the Soviets were trying to expand their influence
Sanders has talked about nationalizing the U.S. health-care system and putting private health insurance and drug companies out of business, the Post noted. He also wants to break up big banks, provide free college tuition and guarantee home-ownership and jobs through massive public works projects, according to the conservative-leaning Post — a News Corp. entity, which is headed by Rupert Murdoch, who at 84 is a decade older than the “codger” Sanders.