On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) shocked Twitter users when he tweeted words of praise regarding China’s maternity leave policy, using it as an opportunity to take a shot at the United States. His tweet prompted a fierce reaction from Hollywood actor James Woods, who recently announced that he will be doing the narration for Carly Fiorina’s campaign film. Woods’s response led the charge for a barrage of clever tweets from Twitter users against Sanders’s tweet, which somehow did not provoke the media firestorm it likely should have.
Sanders’s tweet reads as follows: “China — not exactly seen as a model when it comes to human rights — provides 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. The US provides zero.”
Within hours, Sanders’s tweet received a response from actor James Woods, best known for his roles in Casino and Nixon. The tweet read, “China has notoriously killed female infants for population control, you utter moron. #ChinaGendercide.”
And Woods was not the only one moved to respond to Sanders’s callous tweet. Kirsten Powers, a Democratic political pundit and analyst, addressed Sanders’s tweet by stating, “Except for the babies they force women to abort.”
Sanders did not reply to either Twitter response.
Woods later took to his Twitter to add, “Basically Bernie is this commie scarecrow put up to make Hillary look palatable by comparison, right? There is no other rationale possible.”
Woods could be correct, of course. Sanders might be just the foil the Democrats need to make Hillary Clinton appear to be a moderate rather than the progressive that she is.
But even if that is the case, Sanders’s tweet underscores once more how deluded those on the Left often are. It is easy for politicians that are comfortably reaping the benefits of a free America to ignore reality and point to totalitarian regimes and Third World nations as beacons to which the United States should aspire.
However, Sanders cannot ignore that China’s horrific “one child” policy has compelled authorities to hunt down pregnant women and force them to undergo painful abortions followed by involuntary sterilizations.
In one documented example of a botched abortion that resulted in the live birth of a healthy baby, officials in Shandong placed the crying baby in a bucket to die moments after it was born.
According to the New York Times, China has the highest rate of female suicide in the world. “The one-child policy has reduced women to numbers, objects, a means of production; it has denied them control of their bodies and the basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children.”
Sanders’s tweet callously ignores the hardships of pregnant women in China. And yet where is the outrage from feminist groups?
Fortunately, Sanders did not escape this “blunder” entirely unscathed, as he was blasted by numerous Twitter users for his ridiculous and uninformed comparison.
One user, Tat2dMom, pointed out that many employers in the United States already offer paid maternity leave. Tat2dMom observes that for Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, it’s not enough for employers to voluntarily do so.
“Bernie is clueless, many employers offer paid maternity leave, he wants it FORCED upon taxpayers,” she tweeted.
Another user, George J. Galatis, offered his astute take on Sanders’s statement: “That is exactly why he favors China> eugenics 4 population control.”
And The Right Wing M remarked that Sanders “now wants to emulate China. Bernie forgot to mention they get paid maternity leave of $.32 an hour.”
Twitter user Neontaster did some research and uncovered a Telegraph article from March of this year wherein Sarah O’Meara wrote that companies in China continue to violate the maternity leave policies, aware that it is often too expensive for employees to pursue legal recourse against the violations.
Still. the tweet by Sanders has received significantly less attention than Woods’s fiery comeback. Sanders’s ignorant comment stirred no controversy and garnered virtually no attention from the mainstream media. Perhaps his tweet was not quite as controversial as Senator Kevin McCarthy’s comment on Hillary and the Benghazi committee that later forced him to drop out of the race for speaker of the house, but surely it warrants some anger from those who claim to be pro-woman. Or perhaps not.
Photo of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): AP Images
