A lifelong socialist, Bernie Sanders decided to do some re-branding during his 2016 presidential campaign. No longer was he a socialist, he’s now a “democratic-socialist” (which I suppose sounds and polls better). “When I talk about democratic socialism, I’m not looking at Venezuela. I’m not looking at Cuba. I’m looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden” Bernie declared during the presidential primaries.

It’s a dishonest comment from Sanders, who has praised Cuba numerous times in the past over a period of decades. In 2011 Bernie Sanders re-published an article on his official Senate website that argued: “These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger.” Un-prophetically, the article concludes with the line “Who’s the banana republic now?” (Answer: Venezuela).

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, no socialist country becomes “not real socialism” until it’s undeniably a failure. It’s odd how no one describes the countries as such before hand!

While Sanders holds onto the “democratic” socialist label, a full-blown socialist dictator had already endorsed his candidacy back in 2016. As Reuters reported at the time: Maduro said he supported Bernie Sanders in the U.S. presidential race, adding that the candidate, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, would win if the vote were “free.”

Maduro, a socialist who sees himself as the political heir to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has long railed against the United States, blaming it for Venezuela’s economic crisis and accusing Washington of attempting to topple him.

“Bernie Sanders, our revolutionary friend, ought to win in the United States,” Maduro said during an hours-long televised broadcast. “If the elections were free … Bernie Sanders would be president of the United States,” he said, criticizing the U.S. Electoral College system as unrepresentative of popular sentiment.

And while Sanders at least condemned (or pretended to condemn) the authoritarian nature of Cuba while defending their freebies, he refuses to call Maduro a dictator.

Sanders received an endorsement every candidate should run from – and yet it has been four years and he hasn’t made any attempt to distance himself from it. We can only ponder why.