Dan, I think it’s a natural response, but I also think that it comes from the particular moment we’re in. There’s lingering frustration with the DNC after 2016, and there are questions about what it is that parties are supposed to do. Obama’s legacy is being contested and interpreted by candidates. And I also think — though I can’t really prove this — that polarization means people are less likely to be making a substantive choice in the general election, so they want to feel like they’re making a meaningful choice in the primary.
