For as long as I’ve been politically conscious, pundits have been declaring this election or that “the most important of our lives.” In 2000, it was the Republicans, determined to air out the stench of Clintonism. In 2004, it was the left, worried the country couldn’t survive another four years of George W. Bush’s warmongering. Recently such proclamations have become even more urgent: this election, partisans now say, is the most important in American history.

Personally, I think you’re all full of it, and nothing will ever beat James A. Garfield versus Winfield Scott Hancock back in 1880. Still, if we’re going to recklessly hype every election, then this current one should provide plenty of kindling. We’re about to decide whether the most disruptive president in modern times—stylistically and temperamentally, if not policy-wise—deserves another four years. That’s why it’s been so strange to see the 2020 contest reduced to just so much ambient noise.

That’s partly because the coronavirus is dominating headlines. But there’s something else at work too: this election hasn’t inspired the usual excitement, even among Democrats.

Exhibit A are the endorsements of Joe Biden by Democratic grandees in recent days. Watching these has been akin to that scene in Airplane 2 where the Soviet anchor reads the news while someone offscreen holds a gun to his temple. The most notable of the Biden backers was Barack Obama, who declared his support for Joe in a 12-minute YouTube video. Two of those minutes were spent addressing the coronavirus and another chunk was dedicated to discussing Bernie Sanders. And when Obama did get to Biden, his remarks sounded like they’d been jotted down on a bar napkin. “There’s too much unfinished business for us to look backwards,” Obama said of a man whose entire raison d’etre is his years in public office. “We need to do more than just tinker around the edges,” Obama said, six months after observing that “the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”

Admittedly, Obama was walking a thin tightrope, trying to corral Sanders voters while also not making Biden out to be a socialist. Still, his endorsement came off as tardy and halfhearted. It felt like a slow-motion shrug: whatever. Guess I have to read this script now. Other endorsements of Biden seemed just as coerced. Elizabeth Warren, who gloriously flayed Michael Bloomberg over his alleged misconduct towards women, declared her support for a man credibly accused of sexual assault. Bernie Sanders, who scourged Biden’s record for months, backed him too. Democrats fell in line and it all seemed a rather joyless affair.

Sanders later warned his supporters that it would be “irresponsible” for them not to vote for the nominee. What he really means is it would be irresponsible not to vote against Donald Trump. And that’s the bottom line here. Biden’s policies, Senate votes, temperament, record on keeping his hands to himself, are all a big whatever. The man is a giant sack of potatoes that Democrats have to haul across the finish line in order to obtain the real reward, ousting the president.

I remember listening to a left-wing talk radio host in 2004 as her callers melted down her phone lines. They were complaining about John Kerry’s militarism and moderation, and she was pushing back. “You’re not going to get an exciting candidate this time around,” she said (I’m paraphrasing). “But you have to back him because the alternative is another four years of this.” The same might have been said about Al Gore in 2000 or Hillary Clinton four years ago. Now it’s Department Store Mannequin 2020. Save for Obama, the left never seems to catch a break.

Yet there’s another important factor here: the polls. Almost all of them have Biden leading, often by a significant margin (the one exception is a Fox News survey that found a tie). Some of that may be that Biden is benefiting from a background noise election, that voters like him best when he’s neither seen nor heard. He’s a projection screen, in other words, on which they can superimpose their desires for change. But some of that may also be that after years of piping hot tweets, “lock her up,” “impeach the son of a bitch,” tedious Twitter radicals claiming to be having a moment, a little whatever is going down nicely.