Did you watch Donald Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention Thursday night? Neither did I.

It isn’t that I didn’t want to hear what he has to say. I was curious as to the tone in the wake of last week’s assassination attempt.

But I write speeches for a living. Listening to Donald Trump speak is painful. An orator he is not.

I also couldn’t bring myself to watch a replay afterwards. But I did read the transcript, which I could do a lot faster than listening to a ninety minute address that rambled all over the place. For the most part, I was disappointed.

It seems to be an axiom in politics that politicians lie. Maybe they believe what they are saying is true. And some of what Trump said was true. But a lot more was misleading when it wasn’t outright fabrication. America and the world deserve better than that.

I’m not going to go into the details, you can find those elsewhere. But he missed an opportunity to guarantee a win in November by reverting to the same tired messages that no thinking person believes. Those who thought a near-death experience might bring change were deluding themselves: he is still Donald Trump.

However, I did note some words that I felt rose to the spirit of the occasion and attempted to bring healing to the American divide. They were few, but they were there. So today I am letting Donald Trump speak for himself, for part of this post anyway.

It is encouraging to see that he can at least say the right things, even if so far he has had difficulty putting those words into practice.

We must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement, which is what’s been happening in our country lately, at a level that nobody has ever seen before.

Those words jumped from my screen and made me want to share them. And Trump himself did stay away from characterizations and demonization in most of what he said. Other Republicans said enough to make Trump stand out as a voice of reason.

For too long, our nation has settled for too little. We settled for too little. We’ve given everything to other nations, to other people. You have been told to lower your expectations and to accept less for your families.

I am here tonight with the opposite message: Your expectations are not big enough. They’re not big enough. It is time to start expecting and demanding the best leadership in the world, leadership that is bold, dynamic, relentless and fearless. We can do that.

We are Americans. Ambition is our heritage. Greatness is our birthright.

I disagree somewhat with the tone of those words – they smack a little of isolationism, which is not good for the USA or the world. But I agree that Americans (and Canadians) have frequently settled for less than the best leadership. And it was nice to see something positive about the future.

Being a leader is touch these days, maybe tougher than ever before. And we don’t seem to be attracting the most capable men and women at the highest level. In a weird way, Donald Trump is himself proof of that.

I also think he missed an important word. Leadership needs to be more than bold, dynamic, relentless and fearless. It also needs to be moral. (we’ll save defining that for another day perhaps.)

We must now come together, rise above past differences. Any disagreements have to be put aside, and go forward united as one people, one nation.

The question in the days and weeks to come is: how will they rise above past differences? A month ago Donald Trump was not willing to commit to accepting the election results if he lost. Has that changed? Is national unity really a priority, or only if he wins?

The next few weeks and months will tell the tale. With the Republican Convention over, now the question is who will Trump face in the election. I don’t think Joe Biden is up to the task, but will he have the wisdom to step down?

American and the world is waiting.