Powerful stories from ordinary Americans were best part of dull GOP convention

OPINION:

Now that the Republicans are done with their national convention, it seems timely to make a few observations.

First, conventions are lousy television, mostly because they consist almost entirely of that scourge of the modern world: speeches. There is no narrative arc; we know what is going to happen. People are going to talk. Conventions used to have conflict and drama — usually over which side would win obscure platform or rules fights — and fun and spontaneous floor demonstrations.

Now, they have speeches — mostly boring and predictable speeches.

They are also terrible television because they highlight politicians, who highlight the most anodyne parts of their stories and policy preferences.

It was bad enough during the Republican National Convention that Sen. J.D. Vance, who has accomplished quite a bit — struggling through a difficult childhood, serving honorably in the greatest fighting force on the planet, excelling at one of the world’s premier law schools, writing a bestselling and widely read book, joining the nation’s greatest deliberative body — sounded like someone just living a quiet, boring life somewhere in suburbia.

Conventions in the television era also demand and enforce a discouraging amount of uniformity. Forget about policy. By the end of the week, the boys in the Trump campaign had been reduced to wearing the same red ties and blue suits.

In short, unlike just about everything else in the United States, including Catholic Masses, baseball and shopping, political conventions have steadfastly refused to adjust to television’s pervasiveness and camera ubiquity. It’s a solid and welcome moral stand, but the result is suboptimal television.

The ratings confirm some of that. The first night of the convention had about 18 million viewers. Compare that with the 41 million who saw “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” which, honestly, I didn’t even know was a thing.

Not surprisingly, the best parts of the convention were the stories from citizens, from those who are connected to politics only because they have to participate in the nation’s civic life. These ordinary Americans told simple yet powerful stories about children lost to the ravages of criminal violence, of drugs, or of a distant and uninterested commander in chief.

If there is a path forward for political conventions, it is more of this. The stories and their narrators were fresh, unexpected and unexpectedly good. In short, they were great television.

The other thing worth noting about the convention was the messianic tone of much of the conversation. It is true, of course, that God’s providential love prevented former President Donald Trump’s assassination, and, obviously, to echo Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, God is not yet done with our former commander in chief.

But the same can be said for all of us. We live our lives, wittingly or otherwise, following God’s plan. God is not done with any of us. We all survive each day through God’s grace.

At the convention, many of the attendees and speakers made it seem as if Mr. Trump had some special provenance, that God had intervened in an extraordinary way in the attack for a specific purpose. That’s certainly possible and perhaps even likely. Unfortunately, the Lord was not kind enough to tell us what that purpose might be.

The tricky thing is that once you believe that God loves you more than the other guy, it becomes difficult to treat him as an equal. God loves your adversary as much as he loves you. Anything else is a lie and toxic to your soul. He makes it rain on the just and the unjust; the sun shines on the good and the bad.

The other problem is that compromise is essential to politics but anathema to religion, which, by its nature, excludes compromise. You can’t really compromise if you are on a mission from God.

This brings us back to the more secular problem of what to do with conventions. One day, some bright young person will make it their mission to make conventions great television again or stop televising them altogether. Until then, we will suffer through the same old, same old.

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and served in the Reagan, Bush and Trump administrations.