So suppose that you’re the leadership of a political party. Your party has done fairly well for itself in recent years, to the extent that you control not just the executive, but both branches of the legislature of your country. There’s a big election coming up, you’re holding your party’s convention, and so naturally you want to trumpet all of the great things you’ve done to remind voters how good life is, and hence why they should re-elect your party.
That seems reasonable, doesn’t it?
So why, then, has almost every speech coming out of the Republican National Convention this week consisted of trying to tear down their Democratic opponents, instead of building a case on the merits of Republican leadership? Don’t vote for them, they’re evil
seems to be the average level of discourse here. Why can’t the Repubs do any better than that?
(Obvious answe: the Rs can’t make a case from their accomplishments because their accomplishments are either not all that stellar, or actually contrary to the will of the electorate. I can’t say how true that is off the top of my head, but that’s certainly the impression that one comes away with.)
So put that way, we’ve got a party in charge of nearly the entire government that can’t run a positive campaign on their own accomplishments. What possible reason could there be for re-electing them?