On a recent edition of O’Reilly Factor, Rick Santorum compared Obamacare to apartheid, then called Obamacare “cool” because it helped Republicans win in 2014. “Nelson Mandela died some time ago,” O’Reilly said. “I don’t know if you’re aware. Ninety-five years old. Nelson Mandela – I spent some time in South Africa, he was a communist, this man. He was a communist. But he was a great man anyway. The sacrifices he made for his people were just stunning. But he was a communist. A great man, but a communist.

“I would never attack Nelson Mandela,” O’Reilly continued. “I told Bishop Tutu, who’s like that too, but I told him, ‘I respect you.’ Why can’t you guys in the Republican Party bring that to the forum?”

“Well, Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice,” Santorum replied. “And he was willing to pay a huge price for that. And it’s for that reason he – he – he is mourned today, because of that struggle he performed. But what he was advocated for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice.

“I would make the argument,” Santorum continued, “that we have a great injustice going on too, in this country, with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives, and Obamacare is front-and-center in that.”

“And I agree with [O’Reilly’s] talking points earlier, that the center focus of the 2014 election was Obamacare and all of its aspects,” he concluded. “And the cool thing about Obamacare is that it’s not only bad for the economy, not only bad for people’s health, it’s also bad for freedom of conscience – it’s also bad for a whole variety of issues that have energized all across America.”