The Benghazi security contractors Mark Geist (right) and John Tiegen onstage in Cleveland. Photograph by Philip Montgomery for The New Yorker

In the lobby of the hotel where the New Yorker contingent is staying in Cleveland, there is a framed photograph of a smiling Ronald Reagan, which is part of a charity auction. On returning late on Monday night after witnessing the first night of the Republican National Convention, I couldn’t help wondering about what Reagan would have thought of it all.

To be sure, he was no slouch when it came to criticizing Democrats, particularly Jimmy Carter. But he often did it lightly, and he leavened his attacks, and his conservatism, with a sunny optimism that could veer at times into wishful thinking. Donald Trump’s version of the Republican Party, by contrast, is angry through and through. Rather than inviting the uncommitted on this first night of four, the G.O.P. presented to the nation a dystopian mélange of grieving parents, furious cops, lower-tier celebrities, and the former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who delivered a blistering speech, during which, several times, he worked his face into a furious snarl that about encapsulated the evening. Not until late in the proceedings, when Trump himself appeared onstage to introduce his wife, Melania, did we get a bit of relief from the unremitting negativity.

The official theme of the evening was “Make America Safe Again.” The actual message presented was that President Obama had failed to stand up to Islamist terrorists, illegal immigrants, and Black Lives Matter protesters—and that Hillary Clinton might be worse. The session began with the presenting of the colors, a stirring rendition of the national anthem sung by Marlana VanHoose, a twenty-year-old singer who is blind, and a prayer from Monsignor Kieran Harrington, of the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, who said that he would like for the convention to help “inspire us to build a more noble society.” It is to be hoped that the well-meaning prelate didn’t stick around to listen to the speakers who succeeded him.

Sporting a beard and an American-flag bandana, Willie Robertson, one of the stars of the show “Duck Dynasty,” brought up the murders, on Sunday, of three police officers in Baton Rouge and offered up a prayer for “the brothers and sisters in Louisiana.” Robertson also said, “We need a President who will have our back,” assuring the crowd that Trump was such a man. Next up was Scott Baio, the actor who played Chachi on “Happy Days,” and who recently retweeted an obscene reference to Hillary Clinton. On this occasion, he said, “Hillary Clinton wants to be President for Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump wants to be President for all of us.”

Patricia Smith, the mother of the Benghazi victim Sean Smith, speaking at the Convention. Photograph by Philip Montgomery for The New Yorker Photograph by Philip Montgomery for The New Yorker

Then it was on to much heavier fare. Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, one of the four Americans who were killed at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, said, “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” and went on to accuse Clinton of lying to her and other families about what happened on that night in November, 2012. With tears in her eyes, Smith said, “The entire campaign comes down to a single question: If Hillary Clinton can’t give us the truth, why should we give her the Presidency?” Responding to someone in the crowd, she added, “That’s right—Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.”

This dramatic appearance was followed by a video about Benghazi that showed Clinton in the worst possible light, then by a lengthy presentation from two former U.S. security contractors in Benghazi, Mark Geist and John Tiegen, who recalled their efforts to rescue the trapped American diplomats, suggesting (falsely, according to Clinton’s sworn testimony) that the former Secretary of State watched some of the deadly attack live on a surveillance-drone feed.

From Benghazi, the focus shifted to the border with Mexico, from where a sister and brother, Kelly Terry-Willis and Kent Terry, appeared on a video screen. They spoke about how their brother, Brian Terry, a border-patrol agent, was shot and killed, in 2010, by guns that they claimed originated with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' controversial “Fast and Furious” program. The siblings criticized the Obama Administration, and Kent Terry ended by saying, “Only one candidate is serious about border security, and that's Donald Trump.”

At this stage, the session started to seem less like the opening night of a political convention than a live special organized by Fox News’ Sean Hannity, or another of the conservative media figures who has worked to keep the Benghazi and Fast and Furious stories alive. We moved on to another staple of the conservative media: stories about deadly undocumented immigrants. Not one but two mothers related how their beloved sons had been killed in crashes involving foreigners who had entered the country illegally.

Mary Ann Mendoza, whose son, Brandon, a police sergeant in Mesa, Arizona, was killed in 2014, said, “My son’s life was stolen at the hands of an illegal alien. It's time that we have an Administration that cares more about Americans than about illegals. A vote for Hillary is putting all of our children’s lives at risk. It’s time for Donald Trump.” Sabine Durden, a German-American woman who lives in Moreno Valley, California, described how her son was killed when his motorbike was hit by a car driven by an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who had two drunk-driving convictions and a felony conviction for stealing a car. “He was given a misdemeanor and served just thirty-five days in jail,” Durden said, to howls of outrage on the Convention floor.

That wasn’t it for grieving parents. Next up was Jamiel Shaw, of Los Angeles, whose son, Jamiel Shaw, Jr., an accomplished high-school football player, was shot, in 2008, by a gang member who turned out to be an undocumented Mexican immigrant. “You’d think President Obama cared and that black lives mattered—no,” Shaw recounted. Trump, by comparison, “called me on the phone one day to see how I was doing,” Shaw went on. “Trump will put America first. Not Crooked Hillary.”

At some point while this was unfolding, I looked away from the stage and checked Twitter, where I discovered that Steve Schmidt, the Republican operative and MSNBC commentator, had observed, “What we’re seeing tonight is the weaponization of grief.” Mark Murray, the senior political editor for NBC News, had linked to a Washington Post story about the evidence relating to immigrants and crime, noting, “These are tragic stories, but facts are that 1st-generation immigrants (legal or not) commit less crime than others.” And my colleague Ryan Lizza pointed me to a tweet by Avik Roy, an alum of the Marco Rubio campaign, who wrote, “Summary of #RNCinCLE Day 1: Brown people are making America less safe.”

Reassuring as it was that not all members of the media (and not even all of the Republican Party) were taking the presentations at face value, the atmosphere in the hall was still jarring, with the delegates booing and hissing the very mention of Clinton or Obama. Before Trump and his wife appeared, it was left to an outspoken cop and to Giuliani, who has always fiercely defended the police, to work them into a frenzy.

Wearing a uniform emblazoned with stars and medals, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who is African-American, attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, saying, “What we witnessed in Ferguson, and Baltimore, and Baton Rouge was a collapse of the social order. ... I call it anarchy.” Giuliani, in his speech, also criticized the protest movement, and Obama, bellowing, “What happened to ‘There’s no white America, there’s no black America, there is just America? ’ ” He also lambasted the media for defaming Trump, whom he described as “a man with a big heart.”

The former Mayor’s main role, though, was to push the idea that America wasn’t safe under the Democrats, and that things would be different under Trump and the Republicans. At one point, he addressed the “Islamic extremist terrorists” directly, shouting, “You know who you are, and we’re coming to get you!” After being interrupted briefly by a kerfuffle over a protester who pulled out a sign that read “Refugees Welcome” (prompting the crown to burst into chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”), Giuliani continued with a couple of on-message questions: “Who would trust Hillary Clinton to protect them? I wouldn’t. Would you?”

Giuliani even brought up Reagan, whose Administration he served in, as an associate attorney general. Arguing that Trump was the change agent the country needed, he touched his heart and said that Trump would make America, as Reagan once did, “the shining city on a hill.” After all that had gone before on this night, the phrase sounded wildly out of place.