Monday night, 26 September 2016, the first presidential debate between Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton and her Republican opponent Donald Trump, had millions glued to their screens.
It was the first time a female presidential candidate stood at the debate podium vying for the oval office and I guess no one would have predicted that Donald trump would make it this far.
The debate, which aired on every major news network and various online streaming channels, is the first of three in the lead up to the US election on 8 November this year.
The rules of engagement were explained by the moderator Lester Holt:
It would cover three main topics: Achieving prosperity, America’s direction and securing America.
It would be broken down into six segments of 15 minutes each.
And the candidates would be presented with a question, and allowed two minutes to respond.
Before going into this debate, Trump and Clinton were polling almost neck-and-neck. To my surprise, I must admit, but it was so. One of the polls I came across showed them to be both at 46% of the vote on the day of the debate.
The debate opened with a question on jobs.
Hilary Clinton opened, outlining key policies she felt necessary to build America’s economy.
This included equal pay for women and profit sharing, among others.
Trump gave his version of economic policy – which set things off for the evening.
He argued that America’s jobs were “fleeing our country”, as industries were leaving the US and setting up in Mexico and other countries overseas.
Trump compared America’s economic activity to that of the Chinese who were “good at everything, at the moment”.
His message: the US is losing, everyone else is winning.
The exchange continued around tax cuts, growing a middle class or in Trump’s case, empowering the wealthy who would ultimately create the jobs, and saving America from “losing” to other countries.
But it was not before the inevitable shouting match started – at least from Trump.
In his mind, he must have felt like a game of “whoever shouts the loudest”, wins.
This was to be expected.
But was struck me was Hillary Clinton’s ability to remain calm through it.
Especially when the “email scandal” was raised.
It started when the segment on taxes was introduced.
Trump was asked why he hadn’t released his tax returns – and if he was willing to do so now.
He responded that he would most certainly release the returns after an audit of his interests was complete and more importantly, after Clinton released the 33 000 emails she allegedly deleted in the email scandal.
Clinton kept her cool and responded in two parts:
That Donald had avoided answering the question. She argued that in the last 40 years, every presidential candidate had released their tax returns for public scrutiny – why was this different?
She then dealt with the email scandal issue.
(Brief summary: she used a private email server to do government business. Not just any business, she was Secretary of State – it is a big deal, in America, at least. This is just a summary, we can look at this in greater detail another time).
Clinton simply responded that she had “made a mistake” in using her private server for state business – and took “responsibility for it”. And if she could do it again, Clinton said she would have done it differently.
This didn’t satisfy Trump, who interjected that the incident had been a “disgrace”.
Clinton kept calm.
Let me take a moment to discuss this.
Up to this point I had not fully engaged on what Clinton was advocating for, her policies and thoughts on various issues during her campaign. I had, inevitably heard some of Trump’s proposals – building a wall, making Mexicans pay for it etc.
But the shouting contest and the snide remarks – in some instances, condescending – revealed and confirmed some of my beliefs about Trump.
That is why presidential debates are very important and critical.
The candidates do not have notes, they have no assistants to write a quick statement and prepare them for media interviews.
It is just them and us.
We get to see them, mainly for what they are.
Because no matter how well prepared you are, I believe the real you will come out – eventually.
Donald Trump – at one stage – argued that he had a “much better temperament than she (Clinton) has”.
That is hard to believe – in fact, it is a lie. We saw it for ourselves – he doesn’t.
The concept of presidential debates should extend beyond the United States.
It would be amazing to see and hear some of Africa’s leaders explain their actions, policy decisions and actually be brought to account. The fact that these don’t exist – to my knowledge – in African elections, is a signal of how seriously, or not, we take accountability.
On Monday night there were no scared cows; Trump and Clinton had to answer for their actions, their “scandals”, policies, flip-flopping on their previous positions, and the reason for their new stance, among other things.
It was important for America and the world over to hear Trump’s stance on race – or Clinton’s apology for the email scandal.
It is one of the few moments during an election campaign as important as this one, where viewers have almost direct access to their candidates – uninterrupted and unscripted.
One hopes the remaining two debates will give a much deeper insight into each candidate. After all, one of them will be the leader of the free world in a few months.
You can watch the full debate here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMs62Z-_dc