In his presidential announcement speech in 2000, George W. Bush said his first goal as president would to “usher in the responsibility era,” an era in which “each of us must understand we are responsible for the choices we make in life. We’re responsible for the children we bring into the world. We’re responsible to love our neighbor as we want to be loved ourselves.” Creating such an era, he argued, required changing Americans themselves: “Cultures change one heart, one soul, one conscience at a time. Government can spend money, but it can’t put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives.”

In accepting the Republican nomination in 2008, John McCain urged Americans to take care of one another rather than waiting for government to do so: “Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier, because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.”

In his 2012 acceptance, speech, Mitt Romney declared that, “All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers … The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths. That is the bedrock of what makes America, America. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America's communities, large and small.”

Paul Ryan makes this point in virtually every speech he gives. In 2012, he explained that he had learned “the importance of community from experience. I come from a town that’s been hit as hard as any. A lot of guys I grew up with worked at the GM plant in my hometown, and they lost their jobs when it closed. What happened next is the same thing that happens in communities around the country every day. The town pulled together. Our churches and charities and friends and neighbors were there for one another. In textbooks, they call this civil society. In my own experience, I know it as Janesville, Wisconsin.”

Donald Trump never talks this way. In his presidential announcement speech, he never mentioned “morality” or “responsibility” or “community.” The only family he mentioned was his own.

In his acceptance speech this summer, talked about “chaos in our communities … communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals” and “the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens … communities.” But he never offered an example of a community banding together to solve problems. He never offered an example of an individual taking moral responsibility for his family or his neighbors.

The contrast is particularly stark when Trump talks about African Americans. For decades, conservatives have placed the primary blame for inner-city poverty on the decline of the two-parent family. To be sure, they’ve also argued for tougher crime laws and for abolishing the taxation and regulation that inhibits black entrepreneurship. But the root of the problem, they’ve argued, is moral breakdown. And they’ve consistently valorized the mothers, fathers, churches, and neighborhood-watch groups that seek to redress it.