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The idea that you were, at one point, bound to lose (particularly immediately after the assassination attempt) and, all of a sudden, you're now bound to win is pretty exciting in itself, no?
One could argue that the Dems had a say in picking their candidate - in 2020, when they accepted Harris as the person who would take the reins if the President became killed or incapacitated. Now the President is sort of incapacitated - yes, it's a very odd sort of incapacitation that apparently means you can no longer run for Presidency but can still function as a President, technically - so Harris takes the reins for that one particular thing.
Personally, I'm not too sure whether the tension inherent in Biden being smoked out by the media and party elites has been quite resolved yet and might still come up and bite Harris on the butt after the convention fever is out, and it is certainly not confirmed that Harris's current lead will continue, but I guess it'll take until November to see what will happen.
huh? there was a primary for the VP slot that I didn't know about?
No, but there's an election where you vote for a ticket consisting of a president and a VP.
but that election is between the two major parties, not a selection of VP candidates.
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Look me in the eyes and tell me that you, personally, believe that this constitutes picking your candidate.
I dunno? It's not my job to pick the US Democratic Party's candidate.
A lot of people do seem to think that way, though, from the speed at which they united behind Kamala. I'm just spitballing for reasons why that happened. I could, of course, also just go with "they're dumb lib NPCs who do what they're told", but that doesn't seem quite the satisfactory explanation.
Well then - you might have your answer for why some people have such a hard time believing it's not an astroturf.
I don't see how that follows.
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I don't relate to politics that way, no. I have trouble empathizing with other people that do, at least outside of people that are directly involved in campaigns or work in policy positions. It's not a sport, I'm not cheering for it, and I don't get excited about it in this fashion. Politicians are, at best, instrumentally useful when it comes to getting the things I want done.
But sure, this does seem to be exactly how other people relate to it. Their team was down big in the second half, suddenly got a quick score, and now they might win. Wow, how exciting! Is Kamala Harris good, or committed to any particular values, or someone that earned the job? Who gives a shit, she got a pick six and now those Republicans are so fucked! They can't stop her!
The shape of my understanding for how this works has certainly evolved slowly, arriving much after events unfold, and it has not done wonders for my opinion of my fellow man.
I dunno, I think many people are excited now because they can see it's useful to be. That extra bit of voter zeal for Harris could make a difference to the election, whereas the same wasn't plausible with a Biden ticket. It seems more rational now to add one's excitement to a pot that could overflow into an electoral win. Whether Harris is herself all that exciting is a secondary consideration.
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