you aren't wrong about the differences in the party participants. it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
when trump incites an insurrection and breaks numerous criminal laws stemming from stealing classified docs, paying off a porn star he fucked around on his pregnant wife with, and trying to intimidate a state secretary of state into falsifying an election outcome, the supreme court says he's immune, a federal judge dismisses a case, a state party gets the d.a. put on trial for an affair, and the party rallies around him being a criminal piece of shit and wears it like a badge.
when biden has a bad night at a debate, we get everything from competing 100 page wannabe thinkpieces crawling all over each other from every national media outlet down to surly cr folks losing their minds on message boards. no attempt at spin and rallying to the cause whatsoever.
strong argument for dems to say "hey, we are better than them and we are not subject to a cult of personality like them." that would generally be my position. and fwiw, i think it is obvious that if there was a clear torch bearer to take over for biden, it is the likely outcome.
but in the world of presidential electoral politics, i am somewhat curious to see how this one plays out because gotv matters a lot in this one and if all the marginal folks become ambivalent after witnessing their zealous left leaning friends become despondent while their culty weirdo friends that want to suck donald trump's dick are fully on board, then the ability to mobilize the (minority, but unwavering core) cult may be enough.
the narrative is now all about biden being old and trump being shot at when the narrative should be women being hunted on inter-state roads for seeking medical care and republicans crowing about mental health needs leading to people being needlessly murdered by mass shooters on the reg while making absolutely no effort to actually create resources to actually confront it.