An Overview of The Presidential Debate Between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump on October 9

I watched the first 35 minutes of the second debate on October 9, which was the town hall type debate. Neither Trump nor Clinton directly name-called the other. There were times when they used common things that are directed towards a certain person, for example, Trump called out Clinton by mentioning the email thing with her. On the other hand, Clinton did the same thing, but with the lewd comments towards females that Trump made. The two most used forms of fallacies in the part of the second debate that I watched, were avoiding the issue, and avoiding the question. The two candidates have used these multiple times throughout. It started in the first question, and continued with every question.

For example, not matter what the question is, these two will use a red herring: bringing up other topics to steer the conversation into a different direction. Trump changes almost every question and somehow manages to get it onto the topic of his campaign. Neither of the two candidates use many emotional appeals. During the part that I watched, the closest thing that either of the two came to anything with emotional appeals, would be the question of politics and the youth.

Clinton does a decent job of mentioning the youth of America, while Trump changes the topic to his campaign. Neither of two showed many emotions during the debate. Clinton was often proud of herself for not being like Trump. She looked proud whenever he said anything wrong, whenever he talked out of turn, and whenever he talked over someone. She was glad that Trump was making himself look the way he did. Trump very rarely showed any emotion that was noticeable; his facial expression hardly ever changed. He did act rather snooty and satisfied with himself when he brought up the topics of Clinton’s email and basically forced her talk about them and apologize.

Nonverbally, I wasn’t able to notice too much with the changing point of view of the camera. But, I did notice the proud facial emotion of Clinton from the example that I mentioned before. Trump did often stand up straight, hands clasped in the front, and legs spread shoulder width apart, showing that he was charge, he knew what he was doing, and that he was superior to everyone around him.

Other than what I have mentioned, there wasn’t much nonverbal communication. Objectively, Trump appears to be very cocky. He believes that he comes first, and he’s more important. He very often interrupts and talks over other people including the people asking questions and Clinton. He is very proud of what he has done with his campaign. He also doesn’t want the attention to be on his “locker room” comments, and does everything he can to not talk about it. Clinton seems like she is used to Trump and his words and actions, and deals with it. She seems like she admits to her wrongdoings very well, unlike Trump, who completely avoids his issues.