I mean if they lose the election, they will just run lucrative media gigs screeching how bad trump is for the next 4 years. There's literally zero penalty for throwing the election.

Nah, they're trying to win, they're just constrained by:

1. Being a capitalist party that can't firmly promise much material aid to voters
2. Being an imperialist party that can't respond to widespread discontent with current imperial wars
3. All upper leadership having golden parachutes in media, banking, law, etc.
4. No real way to force Biden out
5. No better option (again, given the restraints of a capitalist party) than an incumbent who's already beaten Trump once
6. Liberal ideology like "we need a strong Republican Party" and "we can't simply arrest this guy we're calling a fascist"
7. The general incompetence that crops up when party leaders basically can't fail their way out of endless party job opportunities

If you and I got in a boxing match and for some reason I insisted on wearing 50 pound weights on my ankles, I could try really hard and would still suck given my self-imposed constraints.