All eyes were on my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio, this week as the Republican Party convened in an attempt to unify behind Donald Trump as its nominee for president of the United States. Full of surprises, political pizazz and controversy, the Republican National Convention was, to its name, ironically unconventional. Not only was the party backing an unconventional nominee with unconventional tactics and unconventional support, but my fellow Republicans found themselves in an unconventional place: the great state of Ohio.
With city slogans like “Cleveland: At Least We’re Not Detroit,” it’s far too easy to think that Ohioans have little to be proud of. When the financial crisis shook our country, Ohio was already dealing with the outsourcing of small-business manufacturing jobs, a dwindling market for coal and failing steel industries. The state plunged into a null period of decline forcing many to move in search of jobs and sweeping up what was left of our pride in Ohio.
But the Buckeye State is on the rise again. Ohio is a place of industrialist entrepreneurs. Innovation and Midwestern spirit are a part of our history. We pride ourselves in our character and our work ethic. But because of the ups and downs of our past, we recognize that character alone cannot fix our problems. We’ve learned that the only way to improve our state is by working together and creating real, tactical policy plans for growth. We’ve elected strong, pragmatic leaders who shine at state and federal levels, adjusted tax plans to create a destination business climate and have put aside our cultural differences to build up our cities together, united.
The United States has found itself now in a condition much worse than Cleveland’s just a few years ago. Police brutality, uneasy race relations and domestic terrorism have become casual headlines this summer, and for over a year now, both parties have been fighting to change the political nature of Washington and take back our country this November. The 17-membered race in the Republican camp, however, made the primary season a bloody battle of personalities in a party already bursting at the seams with different factions and ideologies. In picking Cleveland to host this week’s Republican National Convention, though, the party leadership made a smart, optimistic move.
What better place than Cleveland, where party lines are divided and dialogue is fruitful, to unify the Republican Party? What better place than Cleveland, the most crucial city in America’s most crucial swing state, to show the country that small government and Constitutional rights are still relevant? What better place than Cleveland, a city pulling itself out of the ashes, to set an example for the rest of our country? But the convention’s hottest moments proved that my party doesn’t understand something that Ohioans know quite well: that inflated rhetoric without concrete plans will get you nowhere… maybe Detroit at the most.
After a year of the best-of-the-best of our party mudslinging without cease, we came to this convention desperate to find out who Donald Trump really is, if he can keep our party breathing and whether or not he can get us to the White House next November. Politics aside, we looked for a candidate who could move beyond the divisive messages of hate and discrimination. We needed a candidate who can keep his calm and still get the job done. We hoped for a leader who can truly, truly make America great.
We left empty handed.
When Senator Ted Cruz of Texas took the stage Wednesday night and refused to endorse the Republican nominee, it was clear that personality is much harder to unify behind than policy, especially a personality that received harsh criticism from all three of his top VP picks. The primary season was a nightmare of personal slurs and emotions between candidates which evaded dialogue on the real policy issues at hand in our party. Now we’ve missed an entire election season’s worth of policy discourse, and there’s a great portion of the party that just can’t support Donald Trump, not because of his policies, but because of the persona he’s created for himself.
The Donald’s grand finale speech Thursday night was a culmination of anger and fear. We all, no mater which side of the aisle you sit on, want America to be safe, work, first and be one. But Trump hasn’t shifted an inch from his aggressive, unpoised primary season self. The speech instead pulled on every listener’s heartstrings using the things we fear most like radical jihadi terrorism to put our confidence in his brash self. As he said it himself, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” accompanied with a handful of, “Believe me,” promises.
But our country’s problems cannot be fixed by one man alone. As the people of Ohio have shown, this is a country of neighbors and communities. We use the issues that affect us each day to bring us together, not pull us apart with harmful language. As a party, we’ve become so caught up in whose personality we support, not whose policies we support. Policy is our ‘bond,’ a word now shared by the FLOTUS and Melania Trump. Political dialogue is where we educate ourselves as an electorate, learn from our fellow Americans’ experiences and truly make American great again.
What we need here forward is to acknowledge that our country is not a place of fear. Our country is a place of light, and we need to overcome our polarized politics to become the beacon of promise that our history tells us we are.
It is said that in presidential elections, “As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.” But today, as goes Ohio, so goes our party. As goes Ohio, so goes our American spirit. As Republicans face the general election, we face a great challenge to share in the spirit of Ohio and to come together, united.
Alec Lintz is a Trinity sophomore.
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