This week, Bernie Sanders made waves when he merely reiterated his lifelong warmth toward the viciously evil Cuban communist regime. Brushing off the human rights violations of Fidel Castro, Sanders explained: “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. … When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?”

But, of course, Sanders hasn’t merely praised Castro’s literacy programs. Back in the 1980s, Sanders said he was “physically nauseated” by former President John F. Kennedy’s “hatred for the Cuban revolution.” In 1989, Sanders stated after visiting Cuba: “I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people.”

As it turns out, there is hardly a single communist regime of the past half-century for which Sanders has not expressed some level of moral support. This week, Sanders went out of his way to praise China, explaining: “It’s is an authoritarian country. … But can anyone deny … that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history?” Naturally, Sanders neglects to mention that China’s embrace of free trade and profit margin in the 1990s was responsible for that rise from poverty.

Then there’s the Nicaraguan communist regime of Daniel Ortega. Sanders celebrated the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s, visited Nicaragua and returned to tut-tut Ortega’s human rights abuses by citing Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. Or how about the Venezuelan regime? Sanders refused to call socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro a dictator as late as last year, and refused to call opposition Juan Guaido the legitimate leader of the country.

And, of course, there’s Sanders’ long record of propagandizing on behalf of the Soviet regime. Not only did Sanders visit the Soviet Union for a honeymoon/business trip with his new wife in 1988; he returned and declared that Moscow had “the most effective mass transit system” he had ever seen.

Sanders isn’t a European social democrat, warm toward Denmark and Norway. He’s a lifelong communist and an advocate for anti-Americanism abroad.

The fact that it has taken until the verge of his nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee for members of the media and fellow Democrats to take note of this rather important truth demonstrates that the left’s gatekeeping function has been irrevocably broken.