Tonight, while you’re fast asleep in your bed with subconscious rumblings of the dreaded Monday morning work alarm, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump dual once again, this time at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The general consensus among most lucid pundits in the wake of the first debate was that Clinton managed to sink her teeth into a drowning Trump and came out on top – there is billionaire blood in the water.
Their first war of words coaxed a record audience of 84 million, which surpassed the 81 million that had watched Reagan battle Carter in 1980. While two weeks ago, the candidates faced each other in a traditional format, tonight’s platform offers up something wholly more tantalising and engaging, a town hall styled debate. For those of you not familiar with the Town Hall format, candidates must field questions from not only the moderators but also the audience in what is usually a partisan setting. Que drama, consternation, chaos, and plenty of uncomfortable dry sniffing…
This year, however, with thanks to a civic group named the Open Debate Coalition, questions submitted via an online portal have been permitted. These questions have been whittled down to the thirty most popular and will feature in tonight’s debate marking the first time this variation has been used in the history of the Presidential debate. The task of meriting a question’s popularity falls to co-anchors CNN and ABC so expect a very slight left of field filter.
If we look at both candidates’ strengths in terms of how they react and respond to the environments they occupy, it becomes glaringly obvious that Clinton prefers smaller, more intimate settings – much like her husband (not in that way). Trump, on the other hand, thrives on addressing his dirigible, ire bloated, cadre in prodigious arenas and gargantuan sporting centres – reflecting his bumptious gestalt.
Trump’s gauche behaviour cannot now be un-coupled from his publicly enshrined lewd internal monologues that reaffirm his capricious, deleterious true nature. One can only guess how much practice that he has put into his latest debate strategy – if you can call it that. In light of recent events, the GOP are attempting to collectively pressure Trump. Many Republicans who had previously endorsed Trump have pulled their support. In Utah, for example, Governor Gary Herbert, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz have stated that they can no longer support their nominee, while others such as Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Chris Stewart have called for Trump to drop out of the race altogether.
The derision within the GOP is absolutely anticipated. How many more times can Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, appear before the cameras with the same hollowed out response to the party’s miscreant nominee? It’s a worn out scenario and clearly one that has left many Republicans notably frustrated.
Trump has responded by lambasting the party through his bully-pulpit, Twitter, and at the same time he has been praising his devout supporters who appear to be sticking by him no matter what.
The toxic rhetoric that has propagated the 2016 election thus far will once again come to a head this evening. While the debate may not be as substantive as many would like, one thing will be both incredibly interesting and entertaining: just how will Donald Trump engage with the average American citizen. If we return to the 1992 Presidential debate that featured incumbent George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot, viewers witnessed a masterclass in how to relate to common concerns while appearing professional, intelligible, attentive, and dare I say it, presidential. Bush seemed uninterested and irritable at times, and Perot, well lets face it, he just seemed happy to be there. Check out Bill’s cool performance below.
While Hillary Clinton can appear robotic and cold, she has one quality that Trump doesn’t possess in his political arsenal, empathy (feigned or not, he is a terrible actor). Shane Ross, the current Minister of Transport once referred to Taoiseach Enda Kenny as a political corpse – if Trump doesn’t have a strong showing this evening, he is likely to be atrophied by the Republican Party.
Matthew O’Brien
The Washington Walrus 