Sanders' old praise for brutal Communist regimes isn't canceled out by Trump's adoration of various dictators. It's about how each plays to relevant swing voters. Trump is boastful and it plays to the wannabe authoritarian nativists fine. An abashed Sanders, very different.
Trump can say, "Those are some pretty bad guys, but they get things done and maybe we need more of that here," and his crowds will cheer. Sanders can apologize for praising Castro's Cuba and the USSR (& look smooshy), but his real base wants him to double down, say he was right.
It's not like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn weren't popular. Michael Moore was popular! Lots of Bernie's base would be delighted for him to say "Castro was a freedom fighter and Cuba had good healthcare and literacy despite US interference." That's a mainstream US left position!
While a dozen other issues will be more relevant in a general election between Sanders and Trump (partly since neither of them care about foreign policy), the 300,000 swing voters in the 8 states that matter are going to favor the jingo over the "anti-American" line. Heavily imo.
Winning Florida is the only reason top Dems there and the national party have tried to cut back on this stuff, but it's still very much out there nationally. Hugo Chavez was idolized by the Penn-Sarandon wing and he didn't even have the sexy beard-and-camo look going for him.
