Remember the 2020 race to the White House? Apparently that’s still going on. The slow-moving schlock turbine of the federal U.S. government must go on, global pandemic or no. 

It’s a big one, anyway, this election. Stakes are high.  

Donald Trump is back in the ring and gearing up for a second term with apparently almost no resistance from his own party. At this point, Trump’s only remaining Democratic opponent is the former U.S. Vice President and prolific people-sniffer Joe Biden, after a surprise victory streak during the later primary elections all but secured him the spot for his party’s nomination. 

Neither candidate makes for a particularly attractive option. Biden’s an old dog running low on new tricks. Still, as far as the majority of mainstream democrats are concerned, this old dog is our only hope. After all, Joe Biden is the only thing standing between the current incumbent and another four years in office. 

Something something “lesser of two evils,” right? I mean, look at us: are we really in any position to be pushing our luck right now? To continue allowing Trump unfiltered access to the @POTUS Twitter account? Would any of us actually make it to 2024 in one piece? 

But this article isn’t necessarily about that. This article is about the fact that, with the Democratic National Convention set to take place in August, Joe Biden now faces the task of selecting a running mate to join him for the general election in November. 

The 2020 presidential election has been a long time coming for a number of reasons; as joyless a process as the whole thing may be, pretty much everyone has a horse in this race, and therefore has a different opinion as to who should be on the ballot next to Joe. Seriously. Show me a democrat (any democrat!), and I’ll show you 12 articles somebody’s already written about whether or not that person would make a suitable running mate for Joe Biden. 

It’s a little like fantasy football. Except instead it’s just called Nightmare American Politics and is almost nothing like fantasy football at all. Still—your local columnist almost definitely has a draft pick in mind. 

But, for all the fun and games, it doesn’t really matter who ends up getting picked. As the symbolic figurehead of a collapsing party establishment, Joe Biden himself is such a divisive candidate that his choice of running mate most likely won’t have any serious effect on current public opinion. In this race, Biden represents something much larger than himself. What he does along the way is simply perfunctory, a performance. 

This election isn’t about individuals. It isn’t about Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, and it certainly has nothing to do with either of their running mates. 

At its core, 2020 is about Donald Trump vs. the Democratic Party. 

Those who are determined to remove Trump from the White House will vote for Biden no matter what. Those who are either in favor of or indifferent to the Trump administration are most likely not aligned with the Democratic Party and therefore will not be voting for Biden in November. Realistically, very little could possibly happen in the next six months to affect the outcome of the election in any meaningful way. 

Grace Pulliam is a nineteen-year-old creative writing major from Zachary, Louisiana.