[molson]

The issue isn't Castro v. Batista. It's that the Florida's huge Cuban population is specifically there, separated from their families forever, because they, or their parents, fled Castro. First it anyone who had to do with Batista, then it was the middle class professionals after Castro gutted their livelihood, then it was thousands of unaccompanied minors whose parents didn't want them shipped off for re-education. Praise of Castro is understandably offensive to them. Anybody whose life improved through Castro is still in Cuba.

The comments - and the types of economic systems and revolutions Sanders admires -also touch a fear held by some non-Cubans that Sanders is willing to throw the middle class out with the bathwater if he can burn everything down in the process. (The comments and rhetoric about how only rich people rely on the stock market show you were his line of the "rich" really is.)