John Kasich's recent call to action in his speech after the New Hampshire primary is the toughest call that I have heard from Republicans yet on 2016 campaign trail. In his address, Mr. Kasich didn't tell us to build a wall, he didn't tell us to drop bombs, and he didn't tell us to repeal Obamacare. Mr. Kasich told us to do something much more difficult and much more painful: He told us to reflect.

The other Republican candidates put on a raucous and entertaining show for audiences attending the debates in person and at home. They spend more and more time yelling at each other while we watch and tweet and cringe. Mr. Kasich prides himself and his campaign on not going negative, and he has not spent any stage time shining light on his competitors' faults. Instead, he turned his attention to us, the audience, and how we have failed each other. Mr. Kasich made it clear that we, the silent majority, have failed, not because we have refused to say something, but because we have not taken care of each other. We have not encouraged each other in our daily successes, and more importantly, we have not given each other comfort in moments of struggle, pain and loss.

I am not suggesting that hugs and neighborly love will solve the complex and dire issues facing America at home and abroad, nor do I agree with all of John Kasich's policies and promises. We need a knowledgeable, experienced and disciplined president to address problems of racial injustice, health care accessibility, global terrorism, the achievement gap and the myriad of other issues facing our country. These are tough issues that require tough decisions, but somewhere along the line we confused “tough” with “violent and forceful.”

When Donald Trump was asked during a recent Republican debate how he would encourage Congress to work together to pass legislation, he responded that he will “coerce” Congress into doing so, the way any strong business owner does. To me, that sounds a lot like taking a bulldozer to a gridlocked highway. But a bulldozer is exactly what much of our country wants. Whichever issue you pick — national security, health care or immigration — the solutions currently being offered by the candidates are coercive: Bomb the Middle East, repeal Obamacare, build a wall and throw out illegal immigrants. Such actions are not tough; they are simplistic and foolish.

We need a good president to make real change, and I am still trying to figure out who that person will be. But what Mr. Kasich points out in his New Hampshire address is that our solutions are not in what we can coerce our president to do or what our president can coerce others to do. Our solutions lie in how well we take care of each other, and Mr. Kasich's words make painfully clear that all of us — even the silent majority — are failing at doing just that. That failure should hurt. It should make our hearts ache. And it should spur us toward reconciling ourselves toward each other.

Mr. Kasich's call to introspection may not be what we want, but it may be what we need. Regardless of who our next president is, I hope he or she takes this page out of Mr. Kasich's book: Our solutions start with taking a hard look at ourselves and where we have failed to take care of our neighbors.

I know what yelling sounds like. I know what violence looks like. I know what coercion looks like. I don't need my president to show me that. But I don't know what it looks like for members of Congress to take care of each other or what it looks like for the wealthy and the poor to take care of each other or what it looks like for the people of the world to take care of each other. That's what we need our president to show us.

Jonathan Tomick is a high school English teacher in the Baltimore area; his email is jonathan.tomick@gmail.com.