Go read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky or at the very least Google it and Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony. Get a basic understanding of how power operates in the real world.

Reducing my argument to “media mind control” is a ridiculous straw man. It’s a simple fact that the media exerts a huge influence on how people perceive reality. Two candidates could engage in the exact same behavior and depending on their relationship to the power structure, the media will treat them differently and respond accordingly.

Bernie is routinely called “angry” and “divisive.” You can find dozens articles dissecting his “confrontational body language,” i.e. his “finger wagging” and characterizing it as “aggressive.”

Biden can literally threaten to slap a union worker in a swing state on the day of the primary, and hack pundits like CNN’s Chris Cillizza talk about how it’s “shows strength” or whatever.

Biden wins, the media celebrates. Bernie wins and the media compare it to the fall of France to the Nazis, and claim that Putin is celebrating.

If Bernie had done any number of things that Biden had done, his campaign would be over by now. Bernie challenges the status quo. Biden reinforces it. The same goes with Howard Dean. He was the left of center candidate and the media buried him over the “Dean scream.” But someone like Biden can ramble incoherently and forget the words to the Declaration of Independence, but the media turns a blind ey.

You talk about Occam’s razor. Well why don’t you apply it? How does a candidate go from being up by 20 points to being down by 10 to back up again without the help of a friendly media and the overwhelming support of the establishment? What is the explanation that requires the least amount of assumptions?

Bernie’s support has been stable, consistent and steadily growing over the course of the race. It’s not wildly fluctuating. So how do you infer from that evidence that the young people are the “impressionable” ones?

C’mon. Don’t be obtuse.