They didn’t lead to the apathy - they pointed out the existing apathy would cost Dems the election. It’s like saying the person who said you need to wear a seatbelt caused the wreck.

You’re exactly right about people being excited for Trump and lukewarm on Harris, but that’s entirely on the Democrats for picking the platform and strategy that lost to Trump in 2016.

Harris had a notable and surprising lead when they announced Biden was out - then they changed nothing else. People didn’t just not like the candidate, they didn’t like the policies. They only changed the candidate and thought Trump was a big enough cudgel to bully people into voting even though that demonstrably doesn’t work.