Senator Sanders is part of the Washington establishment. He has been a Washington office holder since 1990 and is a long term Washington insider. Sanders supports all the Obama administration programs. He is supported by the MSM.
Only after Trump became popular did the MSM dishonestly portray Senator Sanders as an outsider.
He's tolerated by the MSM. They'll defend him against attacks from the right but they don't want him to be president, so in that sense, they don't support him.
Only after Trump became popular did the MSM dishonestly portray Senator Sanders as an outsider.
It's basically true that Sanders is part of the Washington Establishment, but at the same time, it's a little embarrassing to keep saying that Trump or Cruz is so massively anti-Establishment and the guy who had a Soviet flag on his wall when he was mayor is a pillar of the American Establishment. It looks like special pleading: my guy threatens the powers that be and nobody else can.
There are different kinds of Establishment or branches of the Establishment. Somebody who's found a cozy home in Congress can still rattle Wall Street. Somebody who frightens Washington DC can be quite acceptable to corporate elites.