The crux of this is that these people feel sincerely entitled to a president who fits their personal preferences, rather than just trying to get the least fucked-up and harmful option in a busted system where bad interests have lots of power
The reason pundits like the contested convention thing is that it plays to their vanities: what if the smart people made a meritocratic decision about who’s best?
This is driven, in part, by being mostly isolated from negative reactions to their opinions over the years.
I wonder how much of this is just them not letting Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal go. Or Biden not sitting for an interview with the Times. "He doesn't want to listen to us? We'll get somebody who does"