It's obvious as to why the Russians would be supporting both Sanders and Trump, you don't even need the US intelligence community to understand it. Trump and the Russians view Sanders as both the weakest plausible nominee against Trump and the one whose supporters are most likely to be aggrieved if he loses. If you want Trump to win the general you support Sanders in the primary. A -> B.
Trump doesn't view Sanders as the weakest. There is video indicating that. It's also pretty obvious Republicans have to
pretend he's the weakest, since he's the "true communist/socialist" of the party.
There is no exact science, so the last statement is just stupid even if Russia thought that. Nate Silver thinks Sanders could be high reward/risk. Ezra thinks he is about as electable as anyone else. etc. etc. The best argument against him I've seen is that a more liberal nominee may result in higher turnout on the other side, which I thought was one of Hillary's weaknesses i.e. a lot of Republicans saw her as more liberal than she was (e.g. flashback horrors of AWB, etc.) and in turn more threatening while she couldn't carry that broad of a base. Though Russia's stance might also have not as much to do with the electability but the foreign policy and domestic standpoint of Sanders that they think might be more favorable. Even if not that, Russia probably thinks Bernie is the best chance to have influence, since the establishment from the media to the pols will back up Biden or Bloomberg. Bernie, though? Apocalyptic hysterics even from otherwise rational people. I see the same Republican talking points: e.g. "You're blaming America!"; "We can't have a socialist in our party; he's not even a Democrat". If he loses, are you going to say the same about him as you did with Hillary? Because it would be odd that Sanders in the 2016 debates alluding to Hillary's acceptance of money influencing her positions hurt her by at least ~1% isn't happening with Sanders who is contending with A LOT more crap.
Fears of a potential party wipeout may be overstated. But it’s not hard to understand their theoretical basis.
www.nytimes.com
Mr. Sanders’s weaknesses as a general election candidate are, at the moment, more theoretical than real. He generally leads Mr. Trump in national horse race polling, and his lead isn’t much different than that of Joe Biden, the man he has replaced as the front-runner for the nomination -- editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball
and the one whose supporters are most likely to be aggrieved if he loses.
Uh, wouldn't it be more the other way? Moderates would be able to mock them, even if the loss could have been simply from Trump being too strong as a consequence of incumbent status. If an establishment Democrat loses to Trump twice, they'll be ever more embolden.
Too obvious. It's why they released the hacked DNC emails. Bernie Bros are as gullible as Trumpsters.
It's weird to blame Bernie for the establishment putting their thumb on the scale. But again, it's fallacious to think only Bernie supporters stayed home or voted Trump/Stein after Comey. The base outside/overlapping Bernie did so! And even if only they did? It's rich. You guys literally make the argument the more centrist Democrats won't vote for him because he said something positive about Cuba/USSR or that they'll take Trump/GOP demolishing all our institutions vs. tax hikes (not that he'd even have a partner in Congress...).