ADVERTISEMENT
The Sun Nigeria
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
The Sun Nigeria
No Result
View All Result
Home Cover

Trump-Clinton Debate: A clash of the titans

27th September 2016
in Cover, National
0
Trump-Clinton Debate: A clash of the titans
4
SHARES
90
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Just as Donald Trump exploded the primary process through unprecedentedly aggressive blasts of campaign rhetoric and insults, Trump exploded the institution of the presidential debate by yelling over Hillary Clinton, dominating the 90 minutes on Monday night with a near-unceasing barrage of interruptions and scorn. He was a human live-tweeter, critiquing Clinton’s statements as she said them, inserting comments in the middle of her answers: “Wrong!” “Not true!” “Why not?”

Trump took full advantage of the format, which frequently seemed to be almost no format at all. Moderator Lester Holt would ask a question, ask for a two-minute response from one of the candidates, and then near-chaos ensued nearly every time. If Trump was asked the question first, he answered and then often interrupted or talked through Clinton’s response.

Clinton maintained a smile throughout much of the debate, but as the minutes ticked by, the smile was a measure of silence — Trump let loose a seemingly unstoppable flow of phrases familiar to anyone who’s heard his stump speech (“we should have taken the oil” “law and order” “Iran was one of the worst deals in history”). By the final half-hour, Trump was also interrupting Holt — “Excuse me! Excuse me” “This is important!” — while Clinton was left standing looking straight ahead.

Clinton and Holt behaved as though this was a normal presidential debate, as such debates have been conducted for decades: with mutual respect, allowing one candidate to finish an answer and move on.

Trump, in dramatic contrast, behaved as he has throughout his campaign: Alternating conversational directness with a slashing insistence on getting the last word. He was at once relentless, and completely at ease in steamrolling over both Clinton and Holt whenever he pleased. As soon as the debate ended, John Dickerson on CBS made a significant observation that I think will prove true in the next day or so of who-won-it judgments, when he said that the winner of the debate will probably come down to whether “people will respond to the blunt force of Trump, or Clinton’s command of the facts.”

In the lead-up to the debate, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC went all day with predebate coverage, emitting endless talk about how and when the debate would be fact-checked. And fact-checking Trump in particular. During the debate, Clinton responded to one long Trump answer by saying she hoped the fact-checkers were working away at what her opponent had just said. This emphasis on fact-checking fundamentally misunderstands one of the dynamics of television: It’s what people see that matters as much as what they hear. I would wager that for millions of Americans watching on Monday night, they saw a Donald Trump who dominated the debate in an exceedingly forceful manner, and in the sheer number of minutes he spoke. His voice was heard more frequently than Clinton’s. Most of the debate was broadcast in split screen, with side-by-side close-ups of the candidates. As the debate went on, Trump increased the amount of face-pulling, grimacing, and “sad” head-shaking, thereby pulling viewers’ attention away from Clinton’s responses.

The most stark example of this clash of styles occurred near the end, when Trump said of Clinton, “She doesn’t have the stamina” to be president. Now, here was an opportunity for Clinton to call Trump on the subtext of what he was saying — his clear implication that there is something wrong with her health. It was a moment when Clinton needed to improvise, to seize an opportunity to address this scurrilousness.

Instead, she smiled her grim smile and she went to what was clearly a rehearsed answer, about how “as soon as he travels to 112 countries… or even spends 11 hours testifying before a congressional committee, he can talk to me about experience.” It was a perfectly good answer, but it wasn’t the forceful rejection of Trump’s rhetoric that it could have been.

Post-debate, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said, “She clearly managed to get under his skin, and he reacted as Donald Trump will.” “Getting under his skin” was another theme we heard all day across cable news — how it had been “leaked” that Clinton’s camp was coming up with ways to “get under Trump’s skin.” Well, it was clear by the end that Trump had gotten under Clinton’s skin, and Lester Holt’s skin, as well.

Philip Nwosu

Philip Nwosu

Related Posts

UK consulting firm urges African businesses to move beyond coping with COVID-19
National

Africa’s confirmed COVID-19 cases near 3.94m

5th March 2021
Electricity: Don’t pay for power not supplied, NERC admonishes Nigerians
National

DisCos to replace faulty and obsolete meters – NERC

5th March 2021
House of Reps: Electoral Reforms, Constitution  Review, PIB top  agenda in 2021
National

COVID-19: Gbajabiamila warns against playing politics with the vaccines in Nigeria

5th March 2021
Next Post
The last bus-stop for the mad

The last bus-stop for the mad

HEALTH: NHIS to subsidise insurance premium for mothers, children

Presidency: FG appoints BPP, SON, 11 other parastatal heads

3 die, 18 injured as suicide bomber strikes Maiduguri

Police arrest 3 housewives over alleged attempted murder in Kano

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Highlights

Heatwave: Physician urges Anambra residents on regular water intake

Pope arrives Iraq to rally Christians despite pandemic

Again, Northern elders raise the alarm over attack on Fulani herders in S’West

IPOB vigilante threatens to move into Benue

Skills: Army graduates 67 Wounded in Action soldiers in Kaduna

Kalu greets Obasanjo at 84

Trending

UK consulting firm urges African businesses to move beyond coping with COVID-19
National

Africa’s confirmed COVID-19 cases near 3.94m

5th March 2021
0

 The number of confirmed Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Africa has reached 3,937,028 as of Friday, the Africa...

Electricity: Don’t pay for power not supplied, NERC admonishes Nigerians

DisCos to replace faulty and obsolete meters – NERC

5th March 2021
House of Reps: Electoral Reforms, Constitution  Review, PIB top  agenda in 2021

COVID-19: Gbajabiamila warns against playing politics with the vaccines in Nigeria

5th March 2021
Maiduguri residents panic over intense heat

Heatwave: Physician urges Anambra residents on regular water intake

5th March 2021
Pope arrives Iraq to rally Christians despite pandemic

Pope arrives Iraq to rally Christians despite pandemic

5th March 2021

Follow us on social media:

Categories

  • Abuja Metro
  • Arts
  • Broken Tongues
  • Business
  • Business Week
  • Cartoons
  • Citizen Joe
  • Columns
  • Cover
  • Culture
  • Duro Onabule
  • Editorial
  • Education Review
  • Effect
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Events
  • Features
  • Femi Adesina
  • Food & Drinks
  • Frank Talk
  • Funke Egbemode
  • Gallery
  • Global Square by Kenneth Okonkwo
  • Health
  • Insights
  • Kalu Leadership Series
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Letters
  • Lifeline
  • Lifestyle
  • Literary Review
  • Marketing Matters
  • Muiz Banire
  • National
  • News
  • Offside Musings
  • Opinion
  • oriental news
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • PressClips
  • Public Sphere
  • Ralph Egbu
  • Shola Oshunkeye
  • Sideview
  • South-west Magazine
  • Sponsored Post
  • Sporting Sun
  • Sports
  • Sun Girl
  • Tea Time
  • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
  • The Sun Awards Live
  • The Sun TV
  • Thoughts & Talks
  • Time Out
  • Today's cover
  • Tola Adeniyi
  • Travel
  • Travel & Tourism
  • Trending
  • TSWeekend
  • Turf Game
  • Uncategorized
  • Updates
  • Views from Abroad
  • Voices
  • World
  • World News
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Paper Ad Rate
  • Online Ad Rate
  • The Team
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist