Debate Response - Ethan Mitzen

Hillary Clinton:

• Areas of Strength:
• Clinton’s physical composure under the onslaught of lies, slander, and constant interruption was an area of incredible strength. In the first 25 minutes of the debate, Hillary was interrupted 26 times by Donald Trump and 15 times by Lester Holt (according to Vox) but maintained her composure throughout the debate. In the same amount of time, Trump interrupted, was clearly physically ill (maybe he has pneumonia), and became clearly exhausted and incoherent while Hillary maintained her composure and stayed on message and together. Hillary displayed incredible stamina in this debate
• Clinton’s ability to stay on message was an area of great strength. Throughout the debate, Clinton stayed on message and kept to her points very well while Trump fell apart into an incoherent lump of racist hair gel and misogynistic sweat. This also shows how prepared she was for this debate, which is in stark contrast to Trump bragging about not preparing (and attacking Clinton for being prepared)
• Areas of Weakness:
• Clinton’s main weakness was her inability (or unwillingness) to “dumb down” her policy bits. This does demonstrate that she is qualified and whatnot, and thus should not be viewed as a weakness, but most people don’t view this as a policy-oriented election cycle. Most people see this as a personality based election so when Clinton goes on and on about policy (which personally I love) it turns most people off of what she is saying
• Clinton lacks other weaknesses, her debate performance was in fact exemplary, and a lot of the things that would be perceived as weaknesses (her allowing herself to be interrupted so often, her lack of interrupting Trump, etc etc) are examples of the double standard that exists for Hillary Clinton because she’s a female candidate. If she objected to being interrupted so often or if she interrupted Trump (especially as often or nearly as often as he interrupted her) then it would be interpreted as her being b*tchy or bossy or some other misogynistic mantra, whereas for a male candidate (case in point: Trump) it would be seen as a strength to interrupt and a weakness to be interrupted. Hillary Clinton’s ability to remain calm and “stay in her lane” will be seen as a weakness but is in fact a great strength

Donald Trump:

• Areas of Strength:
• Donald Trump’s main point of strength (there are not many) was his knowledge of his own base and his own potential base. He knows that when he interrupts Hillary Clinton stating objective facts by simply saying “lies” and “you can check that”, his supporters (and the people he may possibly appeal to) will not “check that”. His supporters don’t care what Politifact says, they don’t care that Trump actually supported the Iraq war and even if they did they’ll take his word for it.
• Donald Trump lacks other points of real strength, his debate performance was extremely poor, but he did a great job of taking up a lot of time. He interrupted Hillary Clinton a great multitude of times, he talked beyond his allotted time in nearly every (if not every) instance (whereas Hillary Clinton kept pretty close to her time caps) and pushed the limits of the debate rules to the very edge. Trump was able to speak for a very long time. He did not fill this time with a lot of actual substance, but he did fill it.
• Areas of Weakness:
• Oh boy. Donald Trump’s debate performance was full of weaknesses and the most difficult part of this assignment is narrowing it down to the two biggest ones. His main weakness was his lack of stamina. After the first half hour or so, Trump became visibly exhausted, bored, and physically ill. He noticeably sniffled throughout the entire debate, he made crass facial gestures, and he became totally incoherent around halfway in. Trump was unable to maintain his posture or positions throughout and acted with the mannerisms of a child, not an adult running for the highest office in the country
• Donald Trump’s other main weakness was his inability to articulate his points and his general unpreparedness. Trump quickly delved into an incoherent mess and lost the grasp of his positions. He started to talk about almost literal nonsense when the topic moved to nuclear weapons. He began to talk about Japan as if they were an antagonist to the United States instead of a close ally. He talked about the Iran deal as if it was multiple deals. Most of the things he said made absolutely no sense and he attacked Hillary Clinton for being prepared.

Hillary Clinton was the CLEAR winner of this debate. She was articulate, strong, and poised. Her policy positions were well put together while Donald Trump’s policy positions were gibberish. She delivered a flawless debate performance while Donald Trump failed to deliver anything of substance and had the mannerisms of a small child.