Today marks the start of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. The GOP had the misfortune of going first, meaning the Democrats have had time to respond to what was said, or not said, at the Republican National Convention. The electorate, news outlets and maybe even some of our imaginary friends all watched and listened as the RNC in Tampa, Fla., took place last week.

The speeches that dominated media coverage from the RNC were those given by Paul Ryan and Clint Eastwood.

Paul Ryan’s speech has been called “an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech” by Sally Kohn, a contributor to Fox News. And it’s kind of hard to disagree with that statement, considering Ryan tried to blame the United States’ credit rating downgrade on President Obama, when the U.S. was downgraded because Republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling. This was one of many untruths Ryan slipped into his speech.

Then there was Clint Eastwood, who took the stage with a chair in which sat an invisible—and rude—President Obama. The speech inspired applause from Republican delegates, but provided little insight to real-world issues.

Mitt Romney did a good job of not making any inflammatory statements. The governor showed his human side in his speech when he talked about his mother and father’s relationship and his father’s passing.

It’s safe to assume that the Democrats have been using some of the time between conventions to craft some smart-alecky responses to what was said at the RNC. Perhaps they should hit back on some of what was said (namely Paul Ryan’s speech, to set the record straight). However, it would be a disservice to the electorate to make attacking the other party the focus of the convention.

Sadly, it is unrealistic to expect politicians to seize the opportunity to talk about real, pressing issues when everyone is eagerly listening—so it’s important for the citizenry to look past the negative remarks. The truth is, both Obama and Romney would have agreed on most issues before the campaigning began.

After all is said and done, when the smoke from the political battle has cleared, the issues facing our nation will still be very real — and once again, Americans will realize that fighting among themselves solves nothing.

So what will we learn from the DNC? Nothing — just as much as we’ve learned from the RNC. Both parties are beating the drums of war to rally their troops. It’s up to us to look past the rhetoric and into the facts.