Exactly. The most hilarious part is the "primary" for the major parties. Political parties are literally corporations. tax-exempt corporations, but corporations.

Just like M&M/Mars is a corporation. When they throw "primaries", these are just travelling road shows to drum up money. Parties have no legal obligation whatsoever to accept any particular platform, nor any particular candidate. The parties choose platforms and candidates that will benefit the party, mostly financially, not "the people". Even though a lot of Republicans hate Trump, his fund raising and influence potential are high enough that they nominated him anyway.

So what about "the people"? You (I'd say "we", but I do not participate in the national shower curtain festival) are the customer. Just like someone who buys Peanut M&M's is to M&M/Mars. Sure, M&M's wants to sell a lot of M&M's, and the company may even have polls every once in a while to choose a new colour, but those polls aren't binding, and just because you like peanut M&M's, you don't get to choose the CEO. The corporate leadership chooses the direction of the corporation, not the consumers.