The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion A tale of two weeks in politics, race and leadership in America

Columnist|
July 22, 2016 at 6:02 p.m. EDT
Donald Trump accepts the Republican Party’s nomination for president in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 21, 2016. (Jonathan Capehart/The Washington Post)

If this presidential election season is a slow-moving car wreck then the nation is suffering from rhetorical whiplash. For over the past two weeks, we have been presented with two vastly different visions of who we are as a people and a nation.

From chants of “lock her up” to “build the wall,” the Republican National Convention was a jamboree of fear and loathing of the direction of the country and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. It was a festival so dark that the gathered in Cleveland officially nominated a man who promised to deliver them into the distant light through force – and force of personality.

Here are Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's full remarks at the 2016 Republican National Convention. (Video: Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.
The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead….
My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order….
The first task for our new Administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities. America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were brutally executed. In the days after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee. On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and four were badly injured.
An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans.
I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country. Believe me. Believe me.

No doubt Trump’s words played well with the aggrieved party faithful in the hall. Forget the red meat traditionally lobbed at the base. By the time the first-time politician made his pitch from the Quicken Loans Arena, they had feasted for days on what “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd aptly described earlier in the week as “raw meat.” And much of it was tainted by lies, omissions and distortions of data.

[Fact-checking Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the 2016 RNC]

President Obama pushed back hard against Trump’s doomsdaying of America during a press conference Friday with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. But the more stark contrast comes from the speeches that flooded the airwaves a week ago.

The nation was reeling from the police-involved shootings of two black men, Alton Sterling in Louisiana on July 5 and Philando Castle in Minnesota on July 6, and the murderous ambush of five Dallas police officers on July 7. The fear that the top of our roiling melting pot would blow off was very real. But when Americans desperately needed leadership to try to make sense of the tragedies and get through them, they got it in bipartisan fashion.

President Obama speaks at the memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers on July 12.

Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged.  We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience.  We turn on the TV or surf the Internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn, and people retreat to their respective corners, and politicians calculate how to grab attention or avoid the fallout.  We see all this, and it’s hard not to think sometimes that the center won’t hold and that things might get worse.
I understand.  I understand how Americans are feeling.  But, Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair.  I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem.  And I know that because I know America.  I know how far we’ve come against impossible odds.  (Applause.)  I know we’ll make it because of what I’ve experienced in my own life, what I’ve seen of this country and its people – their goodness and decency – as President of the United States.  And I know it because of what we’ve seen here in Dallas – how all of you, out of great suffering, have shown us the meaning of perseverance and character, and hope….
These men, this department – this is the America I know.  And today, in this audience, I see people who have protested on behalf of criminal justice reform grieving alongside police officers.  I see people who mourn for the five officers we lost but also weep for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.  In this audience, I see what’s possible – (applause) – I see what’s possible when we recognize that we are one American family, all deserving of equal treatment, all deserving of equal respect, all children of God. That’s the America that I know.

Former President George W. Bush speaks at the memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers on July 12.

The shock of this evil still has not faded. At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into de-humanization.
Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this is…
And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose. But Americans, I think, have a great advantage. To renew our unity, we only need to remember our values.
We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the spirit, by shared commitments to common ideals…..
And it is not merely a matter of tolerance, but of learning from the struggles and stories of our fellow citizens and finding our better selves in the process.
At our best, we honor the image of God we see in one another. We recognize that we are brothers and sisters, sharing the same brief moment on Earth and owing each other the loyalty of our shared humanity.
At our best, we know we have one country, one future, one destiny. We do not want the unity of grief, nor do we want the unity of fear. We want the unity of hope, affection and high purpose.

Hillary Clinton speaks in Springfield, Ill., on July 13.

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of police officers, kissing their kids and spouses goodbye every day and heading off to a dangerous job we need them to do.
Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of African Americans and Latinos, and try as best we can to imagine what it would be like if we had to have ‘the talk’ with our kids about how carefully they need to act because the slightest wrong move could get them hurt or killed.
And yes, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Donald Trump’s supporters. We may disagree on the causes and the solutions to the challenges we face – but I believe like anyone else, they’re trying to figure out their place in a fast-changing America.
They want to know how to make a good living and how to give their kids better futures and opportunities. That’s why we’ve got to reclaim the promise of America for all our people – no matter who they vote for.
And let’s be more than allies to each other. Let’s take on each other’s struggles as our own.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) during a floor speech on July 13.

As a family, one American family, we cannot ignore these issues. Because while so many officers do good, and we should be thankful as I said on Monday, we should be very thankful in support of all those officers that do good. Some, simply, do not.
I’ve experienced it myself.
So today, I want to speak about some of those issues. Not with anger, though I have been angry. I tell my story not out of frustration, though at times I have been frustrated. I stand here before you today because I’m seeking for all of us, the entire American family, to work together so we all experience the lyrics of a song that we can hear but not see: Peace, love, and understanding….
While I thank God I have not endured bodily harm, I have however felt the pressure applied by the scales of justice when they are slanted. I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness, and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than being just yourself.
As that former staffer I mentioned earlier told me yesterday, there is absolutely nothing more frustrating, more damaging to your soul, than when you know you’re following the rules and being treated like you’re not….
I simply ask you this, recognize that just because you don’t feel the pain, the anguish of another, does not mean it does not exist.
To ignore their struggles, our struggles, does not make them disappear, it simply leaves you blind and the American family very vulnerable.
Some search so hard to explain away injustice that they are slowly wiping away who we are as a nation. But we must come together to fulfill what we all know is possible here in America; peace, love, and understanding.
Fairness.

None of those leaders avoided the issues that gnaw at the national conscience by talking, in their own way, about the racial tensions that lie at the heart of our discontent. Each of them sought to soothe the nation by reaching their audiences as human beings with the capacity for empathy and as Americans who, in the end, care deeply about an individual’s right to dignity, equality and respect.

[Donald Trump: The candidate of the apocalypse]

Listening to those speeches in succession last week gave me such hope for this country. That at a time when everyone felt the nation was imperiled from within, true leaders, Democrats and Republicans, stepped forward to say, “Yeah, we’ve got problems. But everything’s gon’ be alright.”

That’s the America I know. One that stands at great odds with the grim, degraded nation Trump presented Thursday night.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @Capehartj