To keep America safe, we must … elect Donald Trump?

CLEVELAND — It was inevitable that public safety would make an appearance at the Republican National Convention.

With high-profile acts of terrorism at home and abroad, with police shootings in the headlines and eight police officers dead in the line of duty, the government’s first duty to keep the country safe had to be addressed.

Hence, the theme of opening night: Make America Safe Again.

It wasn’t entirely clear that was the original intent. Monday might have started out as celebrity night, with appearances by Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame, Antonio Sabato Jr. of soap opera fame, Melania Trump of marrying-Donald-Trump fame and Scott Baio, who now goes around saying things like “let’s make America America again,” apparently.

But impossibly and unevenly interspersed with those speeches were harrowing stories of America heroism, heartbreaking tales of grief from childless mothers, and plenty of blame aimed directly at Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Democratic policies.

And the answer? Why, Donald Trump, of course! Even if conservative author P.J. O’Rourke made the case against a Trump presidency by making reference to the nuclear codes, even if Democrats have already crafted an anti-Trump ad that takes aim squarely at his penchant for tough talk and short tempers, we were told by speaker after speaker that it was Trump who would offer peace through strength.

There were plenty of people on Monday night who have been at the pointy end of that spear.

Marcus Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL who survived an unbelievable firefight in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of three of his teammates, talked about their sacrifice. Mark Geist and John Tiegen, veterans of what the program called the “Battle of Benghazi,” gave an account of the awful events of Sept. 11-12, 2012, that killed four people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. And former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani filled the screens with his trademark gesticulations and the arena with his top-of-voice endorsement of Trump.

The hardest speeches to hear, however, were those from people such as Patricia Smith, mother of Benghazi victim Sean Smith, who charged that Clinton was directly responsible for the death of her son, because of State Department security policies in Libya. “Donald Trump is everything Hillary Clinton is not,” Smith declared. She may be right, although not in the way she intended.

The siblings of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, killed in the line of duty, with guns found at the scene traced to the infamous “Fast and Furious” investigation that allowed weapons to be trafficked to criminals, remembered their hero brother. And several mothers told the stories of sons killed in accidents or violence by immigrants who were in the country illegally. They are now advocates for immigration reform.

Whether any of those crimes can actually be blamed on Obama or Clinton, the grief was obviously real, to the point that its presence in a political discussion felt vaguely exploitative. Should those crime-committing illegal immigrants have been caught and deported? Absolutely, and millions just like them have been. Should the State Department facility in Benghazi have had better security, especially since officials there asked for it? Unquestionably. Their grief of the people left behind calls out for a personal, not a political, answer.

The issue of safety in America — whether protecting us from terrorism inspired abroad or violence brewed here at home — is a complex one, unlikely to be solved by simply building a wall, dropping a bomb or going to war in a region that has bedeviled both Republican and Democratic presidents. (Even Trump — in a remarkable instance of him being absolutely correct — says the Iraq War was wrong, and foreseeably so.)

But a political convention is no place for nuance. It’s a place for chants, for faith that, if only a certain person is elected or a certain policy implemented, things will someday get better.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. Follow him on Twitter @SteveSebelius or reach him at 702-377-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.