When it comes to playing the game (the primary) that the establishment sets, it crumbles pretty much straight away from mainstream media blackout and people buying into the narrative that the establishment fed them.

Not at all – they tried this with Bernie and it wasn’t enough. It took the type of backroom dealing that’s not always possible to do him in.

If they were truly competent, someone like Bernie wouldn’t have stood a chance

Competency isn’t binary. They weren’t competent enough to strangle Bernie in his crib, but they were competent enough to circle the wagons at the last minute. They can’t always do this – see the 2016 Republican primary, where the party didn’t get its shit together fast enough to stop an outsider who they all openly despised.

No one’s saying you can’t criticize Bernie’s campaign. It’s just that criticism has to be grounded in reality to be worth anything. For example, criticizing the campaign over the Warren attack is flat-out laughable because it so obviously had no effect (Bernie immediately proceeded to have one of the best starts in primary history).