Bernie’s an egocentric old fart. I don’t think we need conspiracies to account for his rambling foolishness. I’m quite prepared to say he began running for the valid reason that he wanted the Democratic Party to move left (me too), but it’s totally obvious that (a) he was never really a viable national candidate, not just for political reasons but because of his ignorance on many important issues, including ignorance of their importance; and (b) his relative success went straight to his head and exploded it. Admittedly Trump fits both (a) and (b) but Trump did bring a sort of experience as con-man, which Bernie struggles to match.