An over correction. Previously, the two parties would decide on a candidate behind closed doors then start campaigning in August.

Then, some good faith people and some corporations stood up and was like "Hey, that means we have no say in who the party selects to be the nominee" so they have their whole primary system to allow for corporations and weirdos who vote in the primary to participate in "democracy"

But then in those days, people had to go around in hot air balloons made out of racism and asbestos as their main mode of transport, so each state's primaries are spaced out because candidates had to take forever to go from state to state (except some that happen on the same day).

And because running a candidate is expensive, each of the potential candidates have to allow time to get corporate donors (or rarely, grassroots support)

So the process went from 6-8 weeks to several months.

And then the capitalists saw the revenue generated from simply covering the primary races. Those ad spots from the campaigning candidates themselves aside, they could run ads next to reports or footage of the debates.

And then they thought "wow, wouldn't it be better if we started covering the race even earlier in the year??"

And now the circus is in town for basically a whole year every 4 years, meaning libs and chuds spend 25% of their time on earth pretending they live in a democracy when even outside of this absurd system, they have gerrymandering, an electoral college and your vote generally only mattering in a swing state. The other 75% of the time is for treats, which is increasingly consumed out of spite for the voters of the other party.

This type of """political engagement""" is not only accepted, it's promoted by the system because other types of engagement such as direct action actually get things done and the system likes the status quo.